Passage To Juneau: A Sea and Its Meaning by Jonathan Raban (English) Paperback B

Description: Passage To Juneau by Jonathan Raban This is Raban at his best, which is saying a great deal Ian McEwan FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Raban is, for my money, one of the key writers of the past three decades - not only for his immense stylistic showmanship, but also for the way he has taken that amorphous genre call "travel writing" and utterly redefined its frontiers...Passage to Juneau is his finest achievement to date. Ostensibly an account of a voyage Raban took from his new home in Seattle to the Alaskan capital through that labyrinthine sea route called the Inside Passage, it is, in essence, a book about the nature of loss...You close this extraordinary book marvelling at this most distressing but commonplace of ironies. Hes home, but hes lost. Just like the rest of us Douglas Kennedy, Independent. This is an extraordinary book...The epic journey through eddies, rips, whirlpools and various other marine terrors quickly becomes intensely personal...Passage to Juneau is far more than a meditation on the sea and its meanings; it is also an unsparing self-examination, written with mordant humour and forensic ruthlessness Justin Cartwright, Daily Telegraph A thrilling adventure and a telling internal exploration...the writing contains natural description of breathtaking exactness...and the sea itself - in all its moods - has surely never been so intricately painted Edward Marriott, Evening Standard His erudition is enormous, his prose as beautiful and clear as the blue ocean on a crisp morning and his sense of joy at having found his place in the world is immensely rewarding.Passage through Juneau is a wonderfully fluid read. It is also a thought-provoking and challenging work that is likely to splash around in the memory long after the volume has been consigned to the shelf. Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times Notes The Picador B format edition of Rabans account of a voyage through the "inside passage" from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska. "Most beautifully told. Vivid and fresh with observation. It looks like a travel book but its much less expected and more troubling than that" The Spectator. "Unlike other travel books, this is the genuine article... it is a thrilling adventure" The Times. Author Biography Jonathan Raban was born in Norfolk in 1942. He lives in Seattle, and is the author of eight previous novels, Soft City, Arabia, Old Glory, Foreign Land, For Love and Money, Coasting, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, and Bad Land. He has also edited the Oxford Book of the Sea and written a non-fiction book, Passage to Jueau. Kirkus UK Review The author voyages in his own small boat northward from Seattle along the wild, romantic and dangerous coast of British Columbia to Alaska. To reach the remote communities of this coast the sea is the only highway and so he followed in the wake of such early explorers as the unimaginative and eccentric Captain Vancouver RN, who charted the coast diligently, but failed to understand anything of the Indian gods who resided in the sea, giving life and taking it away with indifference. All memories of these ancient certainties were swept away by the missionaries and adventurers that soon followed. In attempting to disentangle and find direction in the chaos of cultures that resulted, Raban is ever aware that he and all the people that he encounters are part of the maelstrom. An absorbing book. (Kirkus UK) Kirkus US Review A rich, multilayered narrative of solitary travel through a vast and chilly landscape. Raban (Bad Land, 1996; Hunting Mister Heartbreak, 1991; etc.), a Londoner resident in Seattle, is one of the English-speaking worlds great travelers and travel writers. Here he crafts a wonderfully literate account, full of thoughtful observation and self-deprecating humor, of a sailing trip up the Inside Passage from the Puget Sound to the Alaska Panhandle. He is not, he admits, a great mariner - "I am afraid of the sea . . . Im not a natural sailor, but a timid, weedy, cerebral type, never more out of my element than when Im at sea" - and the boat he bought for his voyage was chosen less for its sturdiness than for its built-in bookcases, which could house a fine library. Rabans journey is indeed bookish, full of observations culled from his readings. Its also set in parallel with other voyages, foremost among them that of the English sailor and explorer George Vancouver two centuries before. Along the way, Raban visits Native American villages, where he meets a Tsimshian man who presses his children to learn Japanese, Spanish, and computer science so that the Tsimshian people can take a place in the coming millennium; passengers on the ever-present cruise ships that ply the waters of the Inside Passage, the butts of countless Alaskan jokes and even undisguised scorn; and down-on-their-luck workers lured to the North by the promise of high wages but who never managed to punch the right ticket. For all the people Raban meets along his journey, however, his is a fundamentally lonely narrative, marked by sorrowful passages on the concurrent dissolution of his marriage and on the decline of the literary culture he so ably represents. Impeccably written and told, this will be irresistible to Rabans many admirers, as well as those who value a good story. (Kirkus Reviews) Prizes Short-listed for Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award 2000 Short-listed for Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 2000 Promotional "Headline" This is Raban at his best, which is saying a great deal Ian McEwan Description for Bookstore Raban is, for my money, one of the key writers of the past three decades - not only for his immense stylistic showmanship, but also for the way he has taken that amorphous genre call travel writing and utterly redefined its frontiers... Passage to Juneau is his finest achievement to date. Ostensibly an account of a voyage Raban took from his new home in Seattle to the Alaskan capital through that labyrinthine sea route called the Inside Passage, it is, in essence, a book about the nature of loss.... You close this extraordinary book marvelling at this most distressing but commonplace of ironies. Hes home, but hes lost. Just like the rest of us Douglas Kennedy, Independent. This is an extraordinary book... The epic journey through eddies, rips, whirlpools and various other marine terrors quickly becomes intensely personal... Passage to Juneau is far more than a meditation on the sea and its meanings; it is also an unsparing self-examination, written with mordant humour and forensic ruthlessness Justin Cartwright, Daily Telegraph A thrilling adventure and a telling internal exploration.... the writing contains natural description of breathtaking exactness.... and the sea itself - in all its moods - has surely never been so intricately painted Edward Marriott, Evening Standard His erudition is enormous, his prose as beautiful and clear as the blue ocean on a crisp morning and his sense of joy at having found his place in the world is immensely rewarding. Passage through Juneau is a wonderfully fluid read. It is also a thought-provoking and challenging work that is likely to splash around in the memory long after the volume has been consigned to the shelf. Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times Details ISBN0330346296 Author Jonathan Raban Pages 448 Publisher Pan Macmillan Year 2000 ISBN-10 0330346296 ISBN-13 9780330346290 Format Paperback Imprint Picador Subtitle A Sea and Its Meaning Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 910.45092 Illustrations maps Birth 1942 Media Book Edition 1st Audience Age 18 Language English Short Title Passage to Juneau Audience General/Trade UK Release Date 2000-10-06 Publication Date 2000-10-06 AU Release Date 2000-10-06 NZ Release Date 2000-10-06 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:1076862;

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