I go nowhere without a book just in case, Riddle of the Compass is in my truck for the Queen K Crawl (local traffic term) times right now. When traveling prefer to get stuck with something Im certain Ill enjoy and an avid rereader. Id vote for any of OBriens except they wont last long enough for me.
I think on a Livaboard Id take Two Years Before the Mast, A personal narrative of life at sea. Dana went from Boston on a merchant marine around Cape Horn to CA back when LA was a new settlement before the gold rush. His accounting of the experience and locations is riveting having seen the coast of CA now. The small size (500 pages or so) are convenient to haul around and last a long time due to the ship workings and details trying to figure them out. Has a great set of diagrams to pore over. I picked it up when I was jonseing for more Aubrey and Maturin waiting for The Hundred Days.
Or Life of Pi. Cant describe it adequately myself so quoting The New Yorker, An impassioned defense of zoos, a death-defying trans-pacific sea adventure a la Kon-Tiki, and hilarious. Also small at 300 pages, might not last long enough but would be great to read aloud great conversation openings or long enough to trade books with a companion.
That reminds me, got to read Shibumi again, the Trevanian where the main guy explores a cave sump for recreation and then ends up needing it for
well better not spoil it. I want to see what was so impressive reads like now I have a bit of diving awareness. Trevanian also wrote The Eiger Sanction and its another I dont do that any more but it came in handy Im really good at it. He says I dug back into my youth in Japan and worked up a writer for Shibumi, a book just barely within the conventions of the slam-bang super-spy, but one that offered the reader a virile style of excellence that had nothing to do with force, braggadocio, or violence. It blended a good yarn with a life-philosophy, and was an instant international success.
From Shibumi;
"Shibumi, sir?" Nicholai knew the word, but only as it applied to gardens or architecture, where it connoted an understated beauty. "How are you using the term, sir?"
"Oh, vaguely. And incorrectly, I suspect. A blundering attempt to describe an ineffable quality. As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of a man, it is . . . how does one say it? Authority without domination? Something like that."
Shibumi appears to be a movie In Development, I sure hope it comes out as well as Master and Commander did.
If I wanted something more brief, short and sweet quickies so I didnt get caught reading all night Id grab one of Stephen J. Gould or Edward Abbey essays/anthologies off the shelf.
If you like weird have you found Memoir from Antproof Case?
