[ERIC'S FAVORITE READS]
Sailing alone around the world
by Joshua Slocum (published in 1900)Joshua Slocum, the first solo sailor to circumnavigate the earth in a small sailboat, writes, about his adventures and the people he met. This book is a great inspiration for modern sailors. He accomplished this feat at the end of the 19th century, in a small engineless wooden sailboat. He faced storms, aggressive natives, Cape Horn and solitude. His style of writing is unassuming and entertaining.
In the Heart of the Sea: The tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
by Nathaniel PhilbrickThis is a true story of a whaleship that got rammed and sunk by a sperm whale. That story inspired Herman Melville to later write the classic Moby Dick. The Whaleship Essex out of Nantucket is rammed by a furious sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific. The ship is sunk and the crew takes refuges in 3 small open boats. They sail against wind and current for thousands of miles, face huge seas, starvation and to survive even have to resort to cannibalism. To read about the hardship these men endured, their courage and their seamanship is humbling to us modern sailors who have access to modern equipment and navigation instruments.
Time on Ice: A winter voyage to Antarctica
by Deborah Shapiro & Rolf BjelkeI must have read this book 4 times. This book really influenced me both before and after I undertook circumnavigating the world. This is the true story of a sailing couple search for solitude on the frozen continent. Deborah and Rolf decide to spend a winter in Antarctica, aboard their 40 foot steel sailboat. Their book relates their preparations, their ocean crossing and the winter they spend frozen in Antarctica. They alternate the story telling with some chapters written by Deborah and others by Rolf, so the reader gets both points of view. Wonderful color photographs are included inside the book. I was lucky to meet Deborah and Rolf in March 2006 at an anchorage off the coast of Chiloe in Chilean Patagonia. I could not believe my luck when I saw their distinctive red hull in the same anchorage I had chosen. I quickly got on the radio and invited them aboard Whistler for a drink. What an interesting evening we had! They really did not disappoint the image I had formed inside my mind of these two adventurers.
Guns Germs and Steel
by Jared DiamondJared Diamond an American Evolutionary Biologist, Physiologist and writer who is also a professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA, attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations, as a whole, have survived and conquered others, while attempting to refute the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. This book written in a very logical format and making use of anthropology, biology, ecology, linguistics, genetics, and history allows a better understanding of the world we live in and how we got here.
Collapse
by Jared DiamondJared Diamond examines a range of past civilizations and societies, attempting to identify why they collapsed into ruins or survived only in a massively reduced form. He considers what contemporary societies can learn from these societal collapses. For anybody worried about the what environmental damages we, humans, are inflicting to Mother Earth, this is a must read. As in Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond writes in a logical manner about past civilizations, the challenges they faced, their fate and all these lessons of history can be applied to the present and the future.
Shantaram
by Gregory David RobertsThis novel is influenced by true events in the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts, who escaped from an Australian prison in broad daylight and escaped to India. Robert’s main character, Lin, is robbed shortly after arriving in Bombay. With all his possessions gone, Lin is forced to live in the slums, giving him shelter from the authorities and free rent in Mumbai. After a massive fire on the day of his arrival in the slum, he sets up a free health clinic as a way to contribute to the community. He learns about the local culture and customs in this crammed environment, gets to know and love the people he encounters, and even becomes fluent in Marathi, the local language. He also witnesses and battles outbreaks of cholera and firestorms, becomes involved in trading with the lepers, and experiences how ethnical and marital conflicts are resolved in this densely crowded and diverse community. This book is inspiring for anybody who wishes to travel in a non-touristic way and really experience the cultures, the languages and the people. Iincredibly entertaining and well written!