Gentlemen of Book Club,
Good to see you all in such fine form at the last meeting of the Book Club – even if book readership was disappointingly low.
Buy "A Voyage for Madmen" by Peter Nichols from fishpond.com.au
The next book you will either ignore or read carefully is A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols, suggested at the very last minute by The Coo.
“In this extraordinary book, Peter Nichols chronicles a contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems. A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms in the Southern Ocean, and of those riveting moments when a split-second decision means the difference between life and death.”
If by any chance you’ve got yourself a Kindle
Otherwise, you can support your neck of the woods and click that nice big image and get your copy of the book from an antipodean company called Fishpond.
The plan is still to meet on Tuesday 7th April (rather than March as per NC’s email).
Be there or feel the sting of our vague despond!
For those of you who may still need a bit more convincing, you might like to read an interview with the book’s author Peter Nichols.
Some questions to think about as you read A Voyage for Madmen & Non-Fiction in General:
Seeing as how this is the first bit of non-fiction (at least since I came on board), and that non-fiction throws up some very different sorts of questions to that of its more creative cousin, I thought I’d give you all some points to be thinking about while you read the book – or perhaps to think about now that you’ve finished the book, depending on your level of commitment, enthusiasm etc.
- Can fact or history based non-fiction have the same inspiring effect as fiction? If yes with Peter Nichols, then how?
- Are you aware of forming favorite characters as you read through the book? Who did you want to win and why?
- Did you care who won at all?
- Did you feel Peter Nichols had a favorite? Who?
- Would this book be of interest to people who care not one jot for sailing? Why or why not?
- Could you tempt your wife/girlfriend to read this book?
- Are these tails of heroic survival all the more impressive because they are based on historical facts?
- Does reading this book make you want to sail? Sail more often? Never sail again?
- If you do sail, is it pleasing to reflect on how far sailing has developed in the last 40 years?
- How does reading Voyage for Madmen make you feel about your own life? Inspired? Sadly pathetic?
- Are you interested enough in any of the characters in this book to go read their own accounts of what happened?
- Do you learn much of anything about men, the late 60′s, sailing, yourself, determination, stoicism etc while reading the book? If so what?
- Is this book a celebration or a criticism of the mariners whose lives we follow in A Voyage for Madmen?
- Are you finding the way in which the book is written keeps you interested? Would you regard it as a Page-Turner?
- What does Peter Nichols do to control the pace of the book?
- If you didn’t know much about sailing or yachts, was there enough explanation of the jargon that was used? Do you know your Sloop from your trim-tab?
- Did you learn anything important from reading the book?
- Did you have a favorite passage, phrase, or moment from Voyage for Madmen?
