Kim Brown Seely was born and raised in Southern California and graduated from Stanford University. A Lowell Thomas Journalist of the Year, she has worked in publishing on both coasts, including as senior editor at Travel + Leisure magazine, contributing editor at National Geographic Adventure, and travel editor at Microsoft and Amazon. Her memoir Uncharted: A Coupleās Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another was named one of the best books about retirement by the Wall Street Journal and is also a Nautilus Award Winner. She has traveled to more than thirty countries for Virtuoso magazine, where she's a contributing writer and has won more than a dozen writing awards for her work.
I wrote
Uncharted: A Couple's Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another
The Curve of Time is a Northwest classic of coastal cruising.
Itās a marvelous book with an almost dreamlike quality by a woman who, left a widow in 1927, packs her five children onto a 25-foot motor launch and explores the complex waters of British Columbia summer after summer. Blanchet's account of their unstructured days in Desolation Sound reads almost like fiction, but her adventures are all very real.
After her husband died in 1927, leaving her with five small children, everyone expected the struggles of single motherhood on a remote island to overcome M. Wylie Blanchet. Instead, this courageous woman became one of the pioneers of "family travel," acting as both mother and captain of the twenty-five-foot boat that became her family's home during the long Northwest summers. Blanchet's lyrically written account reads like fantastic fiction, but her adventures are all very real. There are dangersrough water, bad weather, wild animalsbut there are also the quiet respect and deep peace of a woman teaching her children the wonderā¦
I first read Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings when I was the travel books editor at Amazon and took it home to review.
British-born Rabanās solo sailing journey from Seattle to Juneau, Alaska, is a riveting take on navigating the Inside Passage (the intricate waterway between Puget Sound and Alaska), weaving together history, science, literature, and intimate descriptions of his life at sea.
While Raban can be a prickly narrator, Passage to Juneau is extraordinary narrative nonfiction and was the initial inspiration for my own book and many seasons now spent boating (and reading) afloat.
With the same rigorous observation (natural and social), invigorating stylishness, and encyclopedic learning that he brought to his National Book Award-winning Bad Land, Jonathan Raban conducts readers along the Inside Passage from Seattle to Juneau. The physical distance is 1,000 miles of difficult-and often treacherous-water, which Raban navigates solo in a 35-foot sailboat.
But Passage to Juneau also traverses a gulf of centuries and cultures: the immeasurable divide between the Northwest's Indians and its first European explorers-- between its embattled fishermen and loggers and its pampered new class. Along the way, Raban offers captivating discourses on art, philosophy, and navigationā¦
It didnāt begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.
Incredibly, I had never read Moby-Dick until spending weeks at sea every summer, so Melvilleās Great American Novel, which D.H. Lawrence called āone of the strangest and most wonderful books in the worldā found me on the boat.
My book has been dubbed āthe Moby-Dick of empty-nest talesā since my husband and I sail off in search of a rare white bear, inspired by Melvilleās great white whale. I had no idea how funny and captivating Moby-Dick was ā not to mention inspiring for armchair seafarers ā until I settled in with its pages that first summer. Itās a brilliant novel.
Melville's tale of the whaling industry, and one captain's obsession with revenge against the Great White Whale that took his leg. Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colourful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of Herman Melville and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom or at home to further engage the reader in the work at hand.
An exquisite novel, Doigās The Sea Runners combines the suspense and drama of a great escape with lovely, spare descriptions of the Northwest Coastās sea, wind, and space.
Based on an account of three men who survived a coastal canoe voyage from indentureship in Russian Alaska during the winter of 1852, it is a remarkable story of the human spirit versus inhuman elements.
Based on an actual incident in 1853, award-winning author Ivan Doig's The Sea Runners is a spare and awe-inspiring tale of the human quest for freedom.
"Goes beyond being 'about' survival and becomes, mile by terrible mile, the experience itself."āNew York Times Book Review
In this timeless survival story, four indentured servants escape their Russian Alaska work camp in a stolen canoe, only to face a harrowing journey down the Pacific Northwest coast. Battling unrelenting high seas and fierce weather from New Archangel, Alaska, to Astoria, Oregon, the men struggle to avoid hostile Tlingit Indians, to fend off starvation andā¦
Arizona Territory, 1871. Valeria ObregĆ³n and her ambitious husband, RaĆŗl, arrive in the raw frontier town of Tucson hoping to find prosperity. Changing Woman, an Apache spirit who represents the natural order of the world and its cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, welcomes Nest Feather, a twelve-year-old Apache girl,ā¦
Undertaking an epic, 4,000-mile journey by rowboat, foot, skis, and raft, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert and her husband trek from Bellingham, Washington, to Kotzebue, Alaska, via the Inside Passage, the Yukon, the Arctic coast, and the Brooks Range.
Their adventure is beautifully described in Van Hemertās memoir, The Sun Is a Compass, both a coming-of-age journey and gripping search for answers to lifeās big questions. Although Iāll never undertake a pilgrimage of this magnitude, I loved reading Van Hemertās book.
During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of chickadees, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert began to feel stifled in the isolated, sterile environment of the lab. Worried that she was losing her passion for the scientific research she once loved, she was compelled to experience wildness again, to be guided by the sounds of birds and to follow the trails of animals.
In March of 2012 she and her husband set off on a 4,000-mile wilderness journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic. Travelling by rowboat, ski, foot, raft and canoe, they explored northernā¦
I fell in love with the idea of learning to sail and exploring the British Columbia Coast when my husband and I were becoming empty nesters. We bought a 54-foot sailboat in need of some loving care (and a lot of maintenance) and launched ourselves into the wilds of Canada ā navigating lifeās changes and challenges at the same time. The problem was, Iād never really sailed before. A romantic at heart, I relished the idea of sailing and the way our boat would feel ā cozy as a shell. As a travel writer, I also liked reading about sailing and especially, great sea adventures. Over time, our sailboat has become a sort of floating library. Here are some of my favorite books from its shelves.
Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon where everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesnāt take long for him to catch the attention of theā¦
NORVEL: An American Hero chronicles the remarkable life of Norvel Lee, a civil rights pioneer and Olympic athlete who challenged segregation in 1948 Virginia. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to working-class parents who valued education, Lee overcame Jim Crow laws and a speech impediment to achieve extraordinary success.