Coasting

In 1982, while British troops were sailing to war in the Falklands, Jonathan Raban began a long journey around the British Isles. His three-thousand mile voyage revealed many lively encounters with friends and strangers, but it is his description of the sea that makes this work a masterpiece.

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Put Jonathan Raban on a boat and the results will be fascinating, and never more so than when he s sailing around the serpentine, 2,000-mile coast of his native England. In this acutely perceived and beautifully written book, the bestselling author of Bad Land turns that voyage which coincided with the Falklands war of 1982-into an occasion for meditations on his country, his childhood, and the elusive notion of home.
Whether he s chatting with bored tax exiles on the Isle of Man, wrestling down a mainsail during a titanic gale, or crashing a Scottish house party where the kilted guests turn out to be Americans, Raban is alert to the slightest nuance of meaning. One can read Coasting for his precise naturalistic descriptions or his mordant comments on the new England, where the principal industry seems to be the marketing of Englishness. But one always reads it with pleasure."