This is an excellent,totally engrossing account of the author's quest to survive alone on the open seas for 76 days with a minimum of equipment and supplies. This is a real page-turner and is difficult to put down. Callahan faced his plight with a lot of courage, inventiveness and even humor. The parts dealing with him fighting off his shark companions are often quite funy. An excellent book for any fan of true-life adventures. Highly recommended

Steven Callahan's "Adrift" is an exciting and intellectually deep tale of one man's survival. When bad weather arises, a storm turns Steven's sailboat upside down. Watching his dreams go under, Steven readies himself and few supplies onto an inflatable life-raft, and prepares for a journey that will change his life forever. Fighting off dehydration, starvation, and even sharks, Callahan struggles to stay alive, and finds new meaning to what being "alive" really means. Seventy-six days pass, as well as many ships that miss him, before the author finds his place in nature, and ultimately, the key to survival. "Amazing" is an understatement to Callahan's writing. Whether you're a sailor, fisherman, or any other outdoorsman, this is the book for you!

This book is riveting. I could not put it down. Each page makes you want to read the next with out stopping until the end. I found myself saying " What happens next? What else could go wrong? How will he solve this new problem?" It does give you a new perspective on life. I think that if he could perservere throught all this, that any problems we encounter in our daily lives are not insurmountable. I've read this book four times in 14 years and will read it many more times without a doubt.

I read this book, James Thomas Flexner's "Indispensible Man" and Richard Norton Smith's "Patriarch" consecutively. Although the details of the various books run together, I do remember that this is the best of the three that I read, even though my interest runs more towards the politics of early America. Callahan gives us excellent examples both of Washington's military insight and his leadership skills. I read these three books in an effort to understand the man-myth Washington and was most successful in reading this book. Highly recommended. Also, It might help you to read my reviews of the two previously mentioned books.

Steven Callahan's story of sheer determination is one of the best survival tales since Swiss Family Robinson. I believe the book's most powerful asset lays within the nararation though, having the story told by the actual survivor gives the reader an extremely good feeling of what it was like on that small raft. The nararation also opens the mind of the author so the reader can experience first hand Callahan's struggle with sanity. The story starts in Callahan's boat as he attempts to sail around the whole world, alone. When disaster strikes Callahan's ever present knowledge of the sea is shown. Having grown up on a sailboat, one of my favorite features of the book is its vast variety of factual information pertaining to nautical exploration. Although the pictures were shown in rather awkward places at times (pages ahead of where they were to be talked about), they were extremely helpful and interesting as well. Overall I would say that Adrift by Steven Callahan is a great read. If you like stories of adventure, this is a dose and a half of pure survivalism, at its best. I feel that Callahan's story is so surreal that I could say that I might have serious reservations about actually going out on the open sea again, but not about picking up another book of this caliber.

Steven Callahan's book, Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea is a remarkable retelling of his unimaginable ordeal on the Atlantic Ocean. Callahan retells his story in an exciting and gripping fashion. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The main point one gets out of this book is the power of the human spirit. Callahan fought against every problem and disaster with fierce determination. His determination saved his life, and truly is an inspiration to anyone who reads this novel. The novel made me consider how lucky we are to have the luxuries we have at our disposal. It's hard to fathom losing every luxury on the ocean except for your basic needs, food and water. Callahan has to deal with the torment of dying physically and mentally for seventy-six days alone. The book never gets repetitive; Callahan always captures the imagination with his different trials on the sea. It is an excellent read.

This book is as inspriing as it is graphic. Callahan provides a very verbose log of his fight to survive. In reading this book you definitely appreciate how remarkable a man he is and how much knowledge as a sea man he had to have in order to survive. Sometimes in reading a tale of survival it is possible to project yourself in the situation and imagine if you would fare as well as the author. After reading this tale, my response most certainly is that I would not. This doesn't make the tale any less exciting to read and gripping to imagine, it simply leads one to further appreciate the remarkable accomplishment of survival by a remarkable man.

This story has been presented on TV on Discovery or TLC as well and it is very interesting to get the detail offered in the book that wasn't provided in the TV story. Callahan provides some wonderful drawings and images in his book that add immeasurably to the work.