I was watching a repeat of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain and this segment of the show made me think about those whalers at the end of their journey (if you know what I mean).
Friday, October 28, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
More on the 2011 Reading Challenge
Skimming through some of the participants I came across people whose goal was 100, 300, 900, and even 1000! Of these participants they have combined to have read 1 book. Well done!
I decided I would try to outdo all of these absurd attempts and entered as my goal 1 and held down the zero button for about five seconds. I was then alerted that the max I could enter was 5000. 5000! How is that even a possible goal? 5000 is just as ridiculous a number as 1 billion. That would be reading over 13 books per day!
Not sure why I am obsessed with this. New post coming soon, I'm sure.
I decided I would try to outdo all of these absurd attempts and entered as my goal 1 and held down the zero button for about five seconds. I was then alerted that the max I could enter was 5000. 5000! How is that even a possible goal? 5000 is just as ridiculous a number as 1 billion. That would be reading over 13 books per day!
Not sure why I am obsessed with this. New post coming soon, I'm sure.
2011 Reading Challenge
I revisited this today and came across some noteworthy statistics that I'm not quit sure what to make of.
1. 145,000 plus participants have read over 3.5 million books which is an average of 24 books per person
2. As of October, participants are only 36% of the way toward reaching their goal.
3. The average goal set was 67 books. For the year. Seriously. Even if I was retired and my kids were grown up, I don't think I could pull more than a book a week.
to visit the reading challenge go to: http://www.goodreads.com/challenges/2-2011-reading-challenge
1. 145,000 plus participants have read over 3.5 million books which is an average of 24 books per person
2. As of October, participants are only 36% of the way toward reaching their goal.
3. The average goal set was 67 books. For the year. Seriously. Even if I was retired and my kids were grown up, I don't think I could pull more than a book a week.
to visit the reading challenge go to: http://www.goodreads.com/challenges/2-2011-reading-challenge
Friday, October 7, 2011
October Book of the Month: In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex--an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.
In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.
In the Heart of the Sea tells perhaps the greatest sea story ever. Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy. At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.
"Nathaniel Philbrick has taken one of the most horrifying stories of maritime history and turned it into a classic. This is historical writing at its best--and at the same time, one of the most chilling books I have ever read." --Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm
Nathaniel Philbrick, a leading authority on the history of Nantucket, is director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association.
2011 Reading Challenge
http://www.goodreads.com/challenges/2-2011-reading-challenge
a little late but...
a little late but...
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