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JaneShuff posted an update 5 years, 8 months ago
Some advice please. I have just started reading aloud everyday via Facetime to my father who has Alzheimers and we are close to getting to the end of the book he had picked up. So I am looking for something else to read? Does anyone have any recommendations? His passion was sailing although he is quite happy to read anything. Short stories might be a good idea as he struggles to remember what has happened between sessions, so very complicated plots with too many people are of less interest. That said following the plot doesn’t matter too much as he just enjoys the experience of being read to. It doesn’t have to be fiction. Biography would be fine. And if anybody knew anything like Richard’s blogs on railways but about sailing, that would be perfect!
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Sorry – can’t really help. The only remotely sailingy books I can think of are @daedalus‘ eponymous book, ‘the life of pi’, ‘this thing of darkness’ and MM Kaye’s ‘trade winds’. He’d enjoy Daed’s perhaps? And ‘this thing of darkness’ is awesome, (& ~biographical) but the other two prob not ideal!
What about that perennial fave of mine, Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’? It’s quite short, the plot and language alike are stripped down and simple, yet it’s so moving.
Oh, and for most of the story it’s a man alone in a boat. Ought to be right up your father’s street.
Hi @janeshuff I’ve had a quick look through the public library catalogue. I haven’t read any of the following but how about:
In the wake of heroes : sailing’s greatest stories introduced by Tom Cunliffe
London : Adlard Coles Nautical, 2015.
All at sea : true and tall tales / trawled by Libby Purves. Fontana Paperbacks, 1984. Published to celebrate the 160th Anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Full circle, autobiog of Ellen MacArthur.
Joshua Slocum’s ‘Sailing Alone Around The World’ is great. Then there’s Francis Chichester’s book about his own circumnavigation, which I think was just called Gypsy Moth, or possibly Around The World In Gypsy Moth? Thanks for recommending Daedalus @raine – very kind. It’s OOP now but I’ll see if I have any spare copies left
Thanks @richardb, @libby, @daedalus. Great suggestions. If you had a spare copy, Daeds, I would happily buy it.
Thanks Jane. I only have two left I’m afraid, and I didn’t want to go lower than that. There may still be some in a shop or two somewhere which I’ll chase up but very few of the places I sent copies to on sale or return ever got back to me
If you can that would be great Daeds.