Description

From Land's End to Cape Clear, past Roaringwater Bay and Cod's Head, on past Inishvickillane and Inishtooskert, up through the Hebrides, to Orkney and on to the Faeroes stretches the richest and wildest coastline in Europe. Adam Nicolson decided to sail this coast in the Auk, a 42-foot wooden ketch, embarking on a 1,500-mile voyage through what he hoped would be a sequence of revelatory landscapes. He was not disappointed.

Seamanship is more than a travel journal. It describes an inner journey as much as an outer one—disasters and discoveries, powerful landscapes and modern visionaries, and encounters with the animals living on the wild edge of the Atlantic. Above all, it is about the gaps that open up between those who go and those who stay at home.

Seamanship, in the end, is not about the sea. It's about being alive.

About the Author

Adam Nicols on is the author of Seamanship, God's Secretaries, and Seize the Fire. He has won both the Somerset Maugham and William Heinemann awards, and he lives with his family at Sissinghurst Castle in England.

Praise For…

“An odyssey of island hopping and psychic exploration.” — —Kirkus Reviews

“A superb book, as wise as it is beautiful.” — —Bernard Cornwell

“A dazzling triumph—a profound and magical account of a voyage along the wild edges of the British coast.” — Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award

“A genuinely intriguing, thoughtful work.” — --Mail on Sunday