A Voyage For Madmen: The Tragic Fate of Robert Fitzroy, the man who sailed Charles Darwin around the world
Product Details | Similar Products | Customer Reviews | Author: Peter Nichols List Price: £8.99 Our Price: £6.99 You Save: £2.00 (22%) Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours  |
|
 | Product Details: Paperback 288 pages Release Date: 16 May 2002 Publisher: Profile Books ISBN: 1861974655 Rating:  Sales Rank: 8782 | | Look for similar books by subject:
| | Customers who bought this item also bought:
| | Customer Reviews: Brilliant. (03 November 2008)Gripping and dramatic. I read the book in two sittings a few hours apart. I am sure I would have finished it in one but I was dragged away to cook dinner. The author captures the different natures of the competitors well, builds the sense of excitement both at the start and the finish, as well as capturing the sense of the period, when competitive sailing was much less commercialized than it is now. Well crafted (28 January 2008)I am a small boat sailor and I loved it. This was a documentary that read like a novel and I was totally absorbed by it. It left me feeling both satisfied but sad and I was sorry it had to finish. A first class read ... (01 November 2007)I hate writing reviews, but a book this good deserves to be commended, and for the pleasure it's given me, I feel I owe it to the author, in some small way, to show my appreciation. For Peter Nichols is not only a seasoned sailor himself and so knows his subject well, but is also a very talented writer. His wonderful account of the 1968 Golden Globe circumnavigation race is beautifully told, a real adventure-packed page-turner that seamlessly weaves in the very diverse experiences of the extraordinary men who launched themselves into a venture that had never been done before, none of them knowing if it could indeed be done at all. From first to last Nichols skilfully laces the facts into an immensely readable narrative that keeps the reader glued to the page right to the last. It's a tale of courage and derring-do and self-suffiency and - in some cases - of extreme fool-hardiness and hopelessly optimistic naivety. Nichols' insight and sensitive appreciation of the personalities involved and the personal difficulties and mental hurdles each had to contend with in their respective journeys and battle with the elements, make for thoroughly engrossing reading. In fact, so enamoured with Mr Nichols' fluent and intelligently entertaining delivery am I, that I've since ordered everything else he has written. Now half-way through Sea Change, his autobiographical account of crossing the Atlantic in a little wooden schooner called Toad, I'm really glad I have. The man knows how to craft a tale and make it addictive stuff. They'd never allow it today... (17 June 2007)A fellow crew member brought this on board for a recent sail. It lives up to the cover hype - 'unputdownable', 'gripping'. Nichols keeps the pace up and even if you know the outcome you want to know what happens next... He interweaves the stories of the extraordinary competitors' solo battles very elegantly. Could you imagine today's owners of The Sunday Times sponsoring a race whose almost ridiculously courageous participants were so poorly prepared? Chay Blyth set off not knowing how to sail. The author's handling of Donald Crowhurst's mental unravelling - the subject of the well-made film documentary 'Deep Water' - is properly sensitive. My companions (several of whom had already read the book) kept demanding to be read extracts. Buy it, but make sure you put aside some time and don't have to put it down. Great writer (18 July 2006)The difference with Nichols and the authors of books on a similar topic, e.g., Perfect Storm, is that he can write. He avoids resorting to sentimentality in order to engage our interest. I'll be looking for other titles by this author. Evolutions Captain I would say is even better. | |
