Cultured Travel Guide Books - Adrift: Seventy Six Days Lost at Sea |
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List Price: $12.95
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9780345410153
ISBN: 0345410157
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 1996-09-29
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: 1996-09-29
Studio: Ballantine Books |
| Spotlight Customer Reviews: |
Customer Rating: 
Summary: ADRIFT
Comment: Stranded out in an ocean with a five foot raft, three pounds of food and a few pints of water. How would you survive? Could you last seventy-six days? This non-fiction story of Steven Callahan is an inspiring book with extremely important facts, suited best for readers 13 and older. ADRIFT is written by Steven Callahan, the survivor himself. This story is about a man whose boat sinks and is forced to live in the Atlantic Ocean with hardly any food and only a five foot raft. He has to face storms, and waves, the heat and hunger. He has challenges of catching food, getting clean water, and battling off sharks! At the begginning Steven did not believe he could make it even ten days, he ended up lasting 76 days! He has his ups and downs where he is close to death but something always gets him through. This incredible book is one I will recomend to everyone I know, it is very interesting and makes me think a lot about how lucky I am to be living how I am. Stevens confidence is inspiring, and I am still shocked that he lived. Would you be able to survive? Find out how Steven did by reading ADRIFT.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Determination, not luck
Comment: I mean no offense to author Steven Callahan, but if anyone had to be lost at sea, I'm glad it was him.
After reading Callahan's "Adrift," I have to believe that he is probably the ONLY person who could have survived for 76 days alone on a raft in the Atlantic.
Callahan was cast adrift when his sailboat suddenly sunk near the Canary Islands. He didn't survive by chance. As the book shows, he was smart, inventive, determined and persistent.
At first, I wondered if this book might get monotonous -- perhaps it would be just day after day of idle drifting with no sign of rescue. Rather, Callahan does an excellent job showing how each day brought fresh problems and challenges.
He struggles at first to catch fish, then triumphantly succeeds. When the point of his spear is lost he improvises with a butter knife. He struggles to collect fresh water, trying and modifying several devices. He fights off sharks, and then wrestles with hallucinations, nightmares and depression.
At one crucial point he spends four days trying to fix a nearly disastrous hole in his raft.
Callahan may go into too much detail at times, describing for example, the intracacies of how his solar sill worked. But readers can skim past these parts if they wish.
I admire Callahan for his humbleness and I appreciate his brief moments of philosophy. Midway through the book he writes:
"The freedom of the sea lures men, yet freedom does not come free. Its cost is the loss of the security of life on land. ... Sailors are exposed to nature's beauty and her ugliness more intensely than most men ashore. I have chosen the sailor's life to escape society's restrictions and I have sacrificed its protection. I have chosen freedom and have paid the price."
Customer Rating:
Summary: A harrowing, gripping tale.
Comment: Steven Callahan's ADRIFT: 76 DAYS LOST AT SEA is narrated in the author's own voice which lends a gripping high drama to the true story of a shipwreck and survival at sea. ADRIFT was an astonishing memoir in book form: in audio it brings to life every chilling moment of experience in a harrowing, gripping tale.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A deeply moving story of survival
Comment: The book is a thoroughly realistic and sensitive depiction of the days the author spent across the Atlantic Ocean fighting for survival. As the book is not the original log, but a book written way after the author was rescued, one might expect self-aggrandizement of sorts or at least some hubris to settle in. Surviving 76 days on an inflated life raft with only rudimentary equipment is no small feat after all. To the contrary however we find humble man, a man who claims that he had learnt how to live and how to appreciate it through the devastating experience. In his own words: "The real story of Adift is not so much about me as it is about the magic and mystery of the sea and how it delivered me two priceless gifts."
The book stands out among other adventure stories in the author's sensitivity and his attention to details. A school of dorados follows him throughout his journey. His observing the dorados daily allowed him to recognize the individuality in them; even under his predicament he feels sorry for having to hunt the dorados. As for Callahan's attention to detail one needs to read only a few pages on how he fixed any of his equipments during the journey. One discovers infinite patience, his affection towards the equipment, description on the minutest details of how he has done the job, and at times diagrams of the equipment. All the diagrams and sketches in the book were drawn by the author as well.
In my opinion the book thoroughly deserves to be included as one of the best survival tales ever written.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Compelling account of struggle and survival
Comment: This book is a fascinating account of survival, which led me to question my own fitness for such a trial. The book is well written as a narrative taken from Callahan's logs, with much detail that places the reader in the raft with him. Whether Callahan experienced an 'epiphany' as another reviewer mentioned couldn't be more beside the point; this is a story of survival, not a meditation on spirituality.
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| Editorial Reviews: |
After his small sailboat sank in the Atlantic, Steve Callahan spent 76 days in a five-foot inflatable raft, drifting 1800 miles before his rescue.
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