Down to the Sea in Ships, Horatio Clare

I adored this. The critic reviews on the back cover describe the book as 'lyrical' 'heartfelt' 'warm and captivating' and it is. Clare strikes a perfect balance between telling the stories of the people he meets, the contemporary shipping business and the seas as he experiences them; the history of wrecks, oceans and ports he is travelling through; and conveying some of the poetry and feeling of all these things.

I can't recommend Down to the Sea in Ships enough, Clare is insightful, chatty and compelling. He gives a sense of the loneliness and romanticism of the sea as well as the dangers, and archaicness of the trade. The men he meets are portrayed beautifully, you get a sense of the personalities and quirks of each of them and it is interspersed with writing that is almost poetry. The cover is spectacular and it is the same inside.

Next I am reading Sketcher by Roland Watson-Grant, it's a proof copy I picked up when I was working at Waterstones, pretty old by now!

Apologies, Madame Bovary (& Mr Flaubert)

I have given up on Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. It is very slow moving and the characters all seemed very 2D, as if they were sketches not filled in properly. By halfway through not a lot had happened, I didn't mind what happened to any of the characters and couldn't face wading through the second half.

I have swapped to Down to the Sea in Ships by Horatio Clare. So far it is brilliant.