I enjoyed "Arabia" by Jonathan Raban, particularly as I read it together with Peter Theroux's disasterous "Sandstorms." The difference between the two writers is enormous: the former is engaging and interesting; the latter makes me wonder why he bothered.

As I live in Bahrain it was interesting to read his observations about being here two decades ago. He paints vivid pictures with words and I found it a very enjoyable read.

This was the first of Raban's books I have read. I look forward to reading the rest of them.

Paul Cleaver Bahrain

Jonathan Raban has brought to the fore many of my memories from having lived in the Middle East for five years. I was there during the oil boom of the 70's, the time he chronicles in this book. His ability to convey his experiences without condemning or romanticizing is truly unique. When I see the incredulous look on the faces of others when I tell them how it was then, I sometimes doubt my own recollection. Raban tells me not to doubt. He was there, he saw the same, heard the same, smelled the same and felt the same. This author continues to be my all-time favorite. I recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand the Middle East and it's people.

Do you like travelogues? Put Raban on your list. He apparently is a student of the Mark Twain school of travelogue writing. I stumbled onto my copy at a local University which was culling its stacks with a book sale. What a find..I will read every Raban book.
Arabia puts you on the street in Yemen,Bahrain,Qatar,Jordan in the middle of the 1970's oil boom. JR paints great pictures and expands your vocabulary too.

Mark Twain, the most globally recognised of the greatest American writers, comes closest to autobiography in this odd and fascinating book. This is the story of part of his life at least, and lays out much of his unique moral and political philosophy.

As a book, Life on the Mississippi lacks a truly coherent story line after the half-way point; it tells the story of Twain's training as a Mississippi steamboat pilot, then, when he returns to the river years later as a successful writer, it drops off into anecdotes as Twain travels down the great river, and can be a deadly bore for some readers.

But, oh, what a picture of Twain it draws! There are great tales of characters he meets along the river, told in his inimitably funny style, wonderful bits of his childhood - like the tale of his insomniac guilt and terror when the match he loans a drunk ends up causing the jail to burn down, killing the drunk - and insightful portraits of the towns and villages along the river.

This is a characteristically American book, about progress and independence as well as the greatest American river, written by this most characteristically American writer. It is a true classic (a thing Twain despised! He said, "Classics are books that everybody praises, but nobody reads."), a book that will remain a delight for the foreseeable future.

Life on the Mississippi is by far one of the most wonderful books ever written about the post Civil War era in America. Mark Twain takes the reader on a melancholy look at this period of time in history as you journey into the Mississippi of his youth, adulthood, and the people and the communities he knew so well. He conveys a miraculous picture of this lively river giving it the grandeur and prominence it deserves. He defines the river very much like a living organism with a power and personality all its own. As the book unfolds, he begins in his days when he grew up along the river and became a steam boat pilot, ending that career with the advent of the Civil War. Later he returns to the river after some twenty years and takes a journey as a writer from around St. Louis to New Orleans and back up the river into what is present day Minnesota. You learn about the different cultures along the river, its tributaries, as well as the remarkable people who become part of the forgotten history of our nation. Twain's anecdotes are sheer brilliance, and he has an incredible way of choosing just the right story to illustrate a particular point transporting the reader back into time as if it was the present day and you are standing beside Twain observing what he is seeing. His reflections of his times along the river and his descriptions of the people and places make this a true masterpiece of literature and I highly recommend it. I found myself only able to read short portions at a time, as I personally found the sheer beauty of the entire book was a work to be savored and digested rather than rapidly consumed as you would with any other book. As I poured through the book, I felt often as if I was traveling with Mark Twain as a companion along his charming and magnificent journey during a wonderful period of history.

In Life on the Mississippi, Twain recounts his river experiences from boyhood to riverboat captain and beyond. Encompassing the years surrounding the Civil War, this book is an excellent source of 19th-century Americana as well as an anthology of the mighty river itself. Replete with rascally rivermen, riparian hazards, deluge, catastrophe, and charm, Life on the Mississippi is another of Twain's stellar literary achievements.

Wit and wisdom are expected from Twain and this book does not disappoint. It is equally valuable for it's period descriptions of the larger river cities (New Orleans, St. Louis, St. Paul), as well as the small town people and places ranging the length of America's imposing central watershed.

The advent of railroads signalled the end of the Mississipi's grand age of riverboat traffic, but, never fear, Life on the Mississippi brings it back for the reader as only Samuel Clemens can. Highly recommended.

and come back with a glittering haul."

So plans Jonathan Raban, when he begins fitting out his small boat, well-stocked with both supplies and literary works, for a trip up the inner passage from Seattle to Juneau. Raban soon gets on his way to Alaska, the last frontier of North America.

The exploration that Raban undertakes on this voyage occurs both in the outer environment and inside himself. He explores, and describes in lush detail, the spectacular and stunning scenery of the coast. To Raban, these outposts of America and British Columbia represent the best of the sublime - a romantic concept which reveres the fantastic and unexplored in nature. Raban docks at many undiscovered ports, and shares these journeys with the reader. In addition to his travel, however, Raban learns a great deal about himself, particularly about his dual roles as son and father, in the course of the journey. Also woven into the text is a good deal of material about earlier inhabitants of the Inner Passage; both Native Americans and early European explorers of the coastline.

This is a beautiful book about the landscape, the sea, and its meaning to one individual. It is beautifully written and will not easily be forgotten.

Jonathan Raban's carefully detailed journey from Seattle to Juneau is beautiful and haunting. His book not only documents this magical area of the world as it now exists, but also as it must have existed when Captain Vancouver led his expedition in the 1790s. Raban's frequent digressions into native symbolism, primitive sociology and life aboard Captain Vancouver's vessel are fascinating and give the book substance that makes it transcend any travelogue. Adding to this enthralling tale, Raban also shares with us important parts of two simultaneuous voyages -- the unravelling of his marriage and the death of his father in England. Glad to surmise from Raban's jacket photo that he should have time to bless us with more prose (he should stop smoking for the sake of us, his would-be future readers). If Raban continues to write, I hope he sticks to the pattern of weaving a variety of messages into his texts; long live the digression!

Passage to Juneau is travel writing at its very best. Lyrical and soaring at one moment, darkly introspective at another, moods tracing the contours and texture of land and sea along the fantastic inner passage, this book hooks and engages the reader at every level. Raban highlights the interplay and clash of culture from the eighteenth century to the late twentienth, with an utterly unsentimental hand and eye. His rich and polished writing is a joy, and his personal involvement with his material reaches the reader's soul. Highly entertaining, richly informative, adventurous and deeply moving, this is one of the most affecting books I've read in years.

Chichester's story-- of his nine-month single-handed circumnavigation of the world with just one port of call-- is laconically told. His bravery, focus and endurance was applauded by a crowd of thousands who celebrated his return to London. His worst moments were the realization that he had almost depleted his stock of his favorite drink, gin; whenever his solitary journey was interrupted by news-hungry reporters in boats or airplanes; whenever he had to prepare for and deliver a radio message to his newspaper sponsors. His best moments were consuming simple meals; playing music taped for him by his son; toasting his wife with champagne on their wedding anniversary while wearing his 'smoking'. Chichester is a man with a huge amount of will power and modesty. When he speaks of discomfort, danger, illness, injury, fear (and he experienced much of each during his journey), he brushes it aside as a necessary part of the challenge he accepted. He is a solitary man, sustained by his belief that he can achieve his extraordinary goal, and by his love for, and support from, his wife and son.

I could not identify with Raban's depiction of people. He is simply too smug and cynical, pointing out the pessimistic and gloomy side of people and places. I did not sense any credibility. Instead reading Old Glory was more like hearing the bloated stuff you expect to hear from someone after one too many pints.

The glory in Old Glory is only Raban's. There are times when you might think he's passing Cape Horn in a washtub. (How daring!) Or perhaps journeying into a Lost Land inhabited by a tribe of pathetically humble simpletons. (Oh, what a pain!) You don't have to be a careful reader to see through this unless, of course, you've lived apart from interesting human contact most of your life and never saw a river bigger than an ankle-deep stream ... wait a minute!...that is, unless you've lived in England most of your life, I suppose! So beware. This is a book of nice little stories and adventures, but resist the temptation to want to shoot the messenger this time. The Englishman might not know any better.

Old Glory tells the tale of Raban's solo journey by boat down the Mississippi from Minneapolis to New Orleans. Along the way, he visits the great cities and backwater towns that dot this legendary American wonder. Raban demonstrates that the Mississippi is, in myriad ways, much more than a river. He records the life-altering relationships between people and place and brings us the history and experience of this ultimate American artery. I have crossed the Mississippi by bridge and plane countless times and, with a cursory glance, acknowledged it as a major American marker. Raban, however, brings a soul to the Mississippi that, at once, uncovers a latent reverence, inspires a profound understanding, and rekindles a vicarious sense of spirit and adventure in the American citizen for "our" river and it's lore. This is an excellent book that deserves, and will certainly earn, your attention.

I have traveled a fair amount through the small towns of the United States and have to concur with Mr. Raban's depiction of both the towns and the people who live in them. Other readers who have taken the time to write reviews of this book here seem to have remembered only about half of what Raban wrote about each of the towns that he visited.

His initial impressions were often filled with disappointment. He had approached this trip with a boyhood dream in his head and he was continually set back on his proverbial heels by the reality of these river towns in 1979. More often than not, however, further exploration of the town, conversations with some of its citizens and reflection on his part, caused Raban to revise his evaluation of many of the places that he visited.

Some reviewers may perhaps have forgotten that this book describes this region as it was after years during which the US economy struggled through an oil crisis, bouts of inflation, intervals of high unemployment and the tail end of the history of the "old economy". Should someone have the time and inclination to retrace Raban's steps nearly 25 years later, I would not be surprised if they found these towns and their people had changed quite a bit, probably for the better in social and economic terms. For instance, Raban devoted most of a chapter to the failed election campaign of Memphis's first black candidate for mayor. A quick Google (keywords: Memphis Tennesee government) will show you that the present mayor of Memphis (Willie W. Herenton) is African-American. I'm going to guess that he is not the first black mayor of Memphis.

I loved Raban's modus operandi for getting to the heart of a place. Tie up your boat, go to the nearest bar and strike up a conversation. This would seem to me to be the most reliable means to quickly get an unvarnished opinion about a place. Sure, someone on a bar stool is likely to have a slightly dimmer view of the place where he or she lives than the average citizen, but Raban was rarely, if ever, content with their views. He basically used the tavern-sitters as a 1979-era local flesh-and-blood Google; he found out the basics about a place like who are the local characters, what are the main industries, which are the burning local political issues etc. His fellow barflies were more important as sources of germane questions than as sources of definitive answers.

Raban's perspective on the St. Louis metropolitan area is one that I can vouch for personally, having visited there 10 years after he did. Furthermore Jonathan Franzen's novel The Twenty-seventh City is an elaborate description of the city-county socio-politico-economic tensions during the late 1980s. The continuum between Raban and Franzen's descriptions is pretty easy to imagine. Franzen grew up in the county and would have been a teen-ager when Raban was shacked up with his rich, wigged-out girlfriend out in Clayton.

I took one long journey through the US accompanied by a Danish friend. Upon learning that my traveling companion was a foreigner nearly every American that we encountered relaxed almost visibly and began to wax philosophical about the state of things. The radius of their sphere of interest varied, but everyone had an opinion about something. It was delightful to see that Mr. Raban experienced this same lowering of guard and move toward introspection as soon as he announced that he was an Englishman traveling in the US.

The parochial character and narrow-mindedness of many of the people he encountered matches up well with my own experiences in similar terrain four years after his journey. It is important to note though that Raban was treated to extraordinary amounts of generosity, both material and emotional, by the people that he met, however rhetorically bigoted they might have been. The author is at pains to acknowledge both the generosity and the puzzling disconnect that he sees between their rhetoric and their behavior.

Just one of the wonderful things that Jonathan Raban does in the course of Old Glory is show the reader the essence of American character. Their aggressive rhetoric is their shield against the unknown, but once you are brought in behind that shield, Americans are among the most outrageously generous and genuinely good people that you are likely to find.

The first half of this book is an enjoyable read, even if like me, you feel that the Smeeton's goal to round Cape Horn in a yacht is foolhardy. And sure enough, the Southern Ocean serves up the house specialty for them right on cue, pitchpoles their boat, and they narrowly escape with their lives.

By the time I got to the second half of the story, I was disgusted with their pointless and quixotic drive to try to round the Horn again after they had spent half a year in S. Chile begging, borrowing, and stealing parts and labor to rebuild their nearly-demolished yacht. At this point I could not enjoy any more of Mile's detailed descriptions of their jury rig or navigational efforts.

The Smeetons deluded themselves into believing that they were some sort of noble adventurers, striking out where less daring people feared to tread. The truth was that they were fools; their experience and knowledge provided them with ample reasons why people should not attempt the Horn in a small boat. But they just did it anyway. A lot of their folly was driven by this pride. Miles even admits that they did it BECAUSE they feared doing it. To his credit, at one point he confesses that they were not thinking rationally when they decided to make the second go at it (which ended disastroulsy, same as the first).

Years later the CCA awarded the Smeetons the Bluewater Medal, but it wasn't in recognition of this particular voyage, but rather for their lifelong accomplishment of cruising nearly the entire globe in Tsu Hang. On the voyage detailed in Once is Enough, their culpability in repeatedly putting themselves in such unnecessary risk was anything but seamanlike.

Once Is Enough is more than enough, especially south of Cape Horn.

Perserverance and seamanship at its best!

Allows you a third chance at a successful attempt.

I know of so many passages from books that reveal the wonder of the sea, yet they do not appear in this selection of material. Too many of the selections are actually very poor, I believe being selected only because they mention the oceans, not for their inspiration, beauty, or literate value. I think two thirds of the material in this book is actually quite moribund.

Terrific book for those who yearn to learn more about the sea, especially for all those armchair wanderers. Raban has done a yeomans job in collecting some of the more well-known stories (Ancient Mariner etc.,) but the true beauty of the book is in those lesser-known impressions of the sea. This book will draw you back again and again, its pull is that of the sea itself.

Jonathan Raban has a lively, quirky writing style: there's considerable energy in his prose and it's enlivened by a dry, British wit and high degree of self-effacement. That's what makes this far-ranging miscellany mostly a pleasure to read. From humble, studious origins, Raban recounts his trials as a fledgling book critic -- hard-working and underpaid -- in the snobbish literary circles of 70s and 80s London. Unfortunately he also inserts chapters here and there purporting to be a fictional account of a frustrated reviewer; it's difficult to tell Raban's intentions with this device, because when he sticks to "true-to-life" stories he's nearly always entertaining and enlightening. There are incisive studies of classic and contemporary authors -- from Trollope to Updike -- but what mostly rewards the reader are articles based on his travels. Even early on that was his strong point. In all, not major Raban, but well worth reading for his many fans.