By Way of the Wind

Rating:
Summary: OK, but not great.
Review: The book tries to cover too much territory. Over four years of life is crammed into just over 200 pages. That does not allow for much detail. While there are some nice anecdotes hiding in the pages, it is mostly "went here, saw this, did that, went on to the next place".

The book is written by a sailor for sailors. If you don't know a jib from a rode, or why broaching is a bad thing, or any number of other nautical terms, you will be lost and confused. I'm interested in sailing, but not a sailor so most of the jargon went right over my head. After a while some of it started to sink in, but the author assumes the audience is familiar with nautical terms and sailing techniques. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but limits the audience the book will appeal to.

While the author starts out as an inexperienced sailor, he seems to have forgotten that by the time the book was written. We are not part of this learning curve from sailing neophyte to salty dog.

Rating:
Summary: Ready to go
Review: This is not the very best writting I have seen, but it did make me laugh and made me ready to try it myself. Moore tells the very real tale of cruising. He includes some of the ups of meeting intreaging folks. He also includes many of the pitfalls of taking your life on a 35 foot boat. It is not really about the writing, it is about sharing the experience.

Rating:
Summary: By way of the Wind by Jim Moore
Review: very entertaining, wrote about all the things I wanted to hear about, reasonably detailed in expression, overall very good.