katomento's review
4.0
beautiful, painfully slow. A slow-moving image through seas, history, and nature. Moving from reflections to facts, from observation to small life-changing understandings
hilaritas's review
4.0
This is a beautiful book but very difficult to categorize. I guess it's a travel book because it deals with many places both near and far from the author's home, but it reaches those places only in a haphazard way. The book treats of various disparate topics, from Maori in 19th century Britain, to the way that chemical plants fit a coastal landscape, to swimming with whales, to elegiac accounts of albatrosses and other birds who spend their lives on the wing. Overall the tone is both poetic and melancholic. I read Hoare's earlier work on whales and this one compares favorably. A wonderful mix of literary and nature writing.
lnatal's review
3.0
From BBC radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Philip Hoare celebrates a lifetime's association with the sea. Abridged by Katrin WilliamsPhilip Hoare celebrates a lifetime's association with the sea. Abridged by Katrin Williams.
Philip Hoare celebrates a lifetime's association with the sea. Abridged by Katrin WilliamsPhilip Hoare celebrates a lifetime's association with the sea. Abridged by Katrin Williams.
halfmanhalfbook's review
4.0
This is such a difficult book to quantify; it is not all about the sea; just a series of anecdotes, stories, histories and tales that are in some way or other linked to the sea. His main philosophy here is that we are all derived from the sea, and are still made from water, and he quotes Arthur C Clarke, who says that the third planet from the Sun would have been more aptly named Sea, rather than Earth.
The interaction with the sea has defined this island, and what Hoare does is weave his daily interaction with the sea and landscape around Southampton with stories of people, creatures, history, mythology and the future of the ocean environment. The stories are in no particular order, and are loosely linked, in a meandering sort of way. He is a big advocate for the natural world, whales and dolphins in particular, and recounts his swimming with several types of them.
It is such a difficult book to categorise, in some ways it reminds me of the meanders of a river, and it is not focused in the way that Levathian was. That said the writing is exquisite at times, and he conveys his emotions and feeling for a huge passion of his.
The interaction with the sea has defined this island, and what Hoare does is weave his daily interaction with the sea and landscape around Southampton with stories of people, creatures, history, mythology and the future of the ocean environment. The stories are in no particular order, and are loosely linked, in a meandering sort of way. He is a big advocate for the natural world, whales and dolphins in particular, and recounts his swimming with several types of them.
It is such a difficult book to categorise, in some ways it reminds me of the meanders of a river, and it is not focused in the way that Levathian was. That said the writing is exquisite at times, and he conveys his emotions and feeling for a huge passion of his.
More...