Survive the Savage Sea is a story of the author's experiences surviving at sea with his family when his yacht sunk in the Pacific Ocean on June 15th, 1972. With his wife, his three sons and a student they'd taken onboard, Dougal Robertson has to fight his way in an environment that has had hundreds of years to adapt.
The tale is told in striking detail and with brutal honesty that leaves the reader absolutely no room to doubt the authenticity. As you read, you find it hard to believe that so much could happen in such a short period of time and you just pray that they don't come up against yet another hurdle. With each new day, you can just see them all get weaker and weaker and it's astonishing that they could still find the energy to push on in search of land after one week, two weeks, three and then four weeks at sea.
A sea story told with very little boating garb, Survive the Savage Sea is a serious story of a family's will to "get these boys to land." I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a love of adventure mixed with harsh reality.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Now, I know there's pretty much no way anyone could be reading this and not know what the plot of Twilight is. But because I like to cater to the improbable, I'll provide a brief description:
Bella is a classic 17-year-old girl that moves from her beloved Pheonix, Arizona to the wet and not so wild city of Forks, Washington to live with her dad. While there she does the only things you can do in such a remote part of the Olympic Peninsula; she falls in love with a vampire.
I first read about Bella and Edward before any of today's "Twilight Mania" existed and I remember picking the book off of the shelf because I thought, "Hey, this is creative." And it is. The plot created by Stephenie Meyer is rather commemorable and if you take into account the time when the book was actually first published, the story is unique and intriguing.
Nowadays, you're hard pressed to find a book store without an Edward poster on the wall and it's even harder to find a girl that hasn't joined the "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" debate. I say it about most books that are made into movies, the media coverage really takes away from the story itself. Take the Harry Potter series for example, every kid in the world knows who Harry Potter is but how many of them have even know what happens in the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's [Philosopher's] Stone? The "Twilight Fanatics" can hardly be called such if they've never read the saga but the media has made it so that they don't even have to.
But back to the story: my friend once described it as "reading like a dream" and I think that explanation is fairly spot on. Everything in Twilight happens easily, quickly and perfectly, giving the reader the feeling that none of it is actually happening. Other than the obvious vampire factor, Twilight isn't a very realistic story but I encourage most 'tweens to at least read the first of the series, even if it's just for a laugh!
Bella is a classic 17-year-old girl that moves from her beloved Pheonix, Arizona to the wet and not so wild city of Forks, Washington to live with her dad. While there she does the only things you can do in such a remote part of the Olympic Peninsula; she falls in love with a vampire.
I first read about Bella and Edward before any of today's "Twilight Mania" existed and I remember picking the book off of the shelf because I thought, "Hey, this is creative." And it is. The plot created by Stephenie Meyer is rather commemorable and if you take into account the time when the book was actually first published, the story is unique and intriguing.
Nowadays, you're hard pressed to find a book store without an Edward poster on the wall and it's even harder to find a girl that hasn't joined the "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" debate. I say it about most books that are made into movies, the media coverage really takes away from the story itself. Take the Harry Potter series for example, every kid in the world knows who Harry Potter is but how many of them have even know what happens in the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's [Philosopher's] Stone? The "Twilight Fanatics" can hardly be called such if they've never read the saga but the media has made it so that they don't even have to.
But back to the story: my friend once described it as "reading like a dream" and I think that explanation is fairly spot on. Everything in Twilight happens easily, quickly and perfectly, giving the reader the feeling that none of it is actually happening. Other than the obvious vampire factor, Twilight isn't a very realistic story but I encourage most 'tweens to at least read the first of the series, even if it's just for a laugh!
Monday, January 4, 2010
An Extreme Event: Updated Edition by Debbie Whitmont
A brief description of events: It's the story of the survivors of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race and what happened during their horrifying time battling the Bass Strait.
I got the book because my dad's cousin's husband heard that I'd read Braveheart and thought I, therefore, enjoyed tales of the sea. Which I don't. But this one changed my mind a little bit. It reads quickly which I love but you have to pay a lot of attention to dates and times if you want the story to really make sense to you and I don't like books like that.
But the way the author, Debbie Whitmont, blends all of the sailors' and witnesses' stories together into one coherrent tale is beyond me.
I found myself feeling actual fear for the men in the book. I prayed that they made it through and I worried when I heard of another injury or another death or another boat found empty. The only comfort I had was when the author quoted a man after the race, then I knew that they must have made it.
I also really appreciated that the book not only gave the happenings of the 1998 race, it also gave brief histories of yachting and yacht racing in general which gave me more information to go on as I read.
All in all, it's an excellent read if you're a yachtie or just like to read about them and it's a pretty great story for the rest of us!
I got the book because my dad's cousin's husband heard that I'd read Braveheart and thought I, therefore, enjoyed tales of the sea. Which I don't. But this one changed my mind a little bit. It reads quickly which I love but you have to pay a lot of attention to dates and times if you want the story to really make sense to you and I don't like books like that.
But the way the author, Debbie Whitmont, blends all of the sailors' and witnesses' stories together into one coherrent tale is beyond me.
I found myself feeling actual fear for the men in the book. I prayed that they made it through and I worried when I heard of another injury or another death or another boat found empty. The only comfort I had was when the author quoted a man after the race, then I knew that they must have made it.
I also really appreciated that the book not only gave the happenings of the 1998 race, it also gave brief histories of yachting and yacht racing in general which gave me more information to go on as I read.
All in all, it's an excellent read if you're a yachtie or just like to read about them and it's a pretty great story for the rest of us!
Intro
I am your average teenager that has lived in Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, the US and now currently resides in Australia, again. I also love to read. A lot. And I read pretty much everything. I have no particularly favorite genre; or at least it changes a lot. I read whatever I can get my hands on. Old and new; fiction and non-fiction; famous and unknown; I read 'em all. And I frequently find myself wishing I had someone to tell about the books I read. So, one day, I thought, I'm going to make a blog.
I must aforemention that there's going to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to my selections. It's going to be whatever someone lent me or whatever was in my local library's very limited selection.
And so it begins...
I must aforemention that there's going to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to my selections. It's going to be whatever someone lent me or whatever was in my local library's very limited selection.
And so it begins...
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