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Summary: With a vivid and engaging honesty
Review: Coming About: A Family Passage At Sea is the memoir of Susan Tyler Hitchcock, a wife and mother of two young children. Feeling the demands of daily life slowly pulling all of the members of her family apart from one another, the Hitchcock's embarked upon a nine-month, 3,500 mile Caribbean sea voyage in order to reconnect and discover more about the world. Highly recommended reading, Coming About biographically chronicles their adventures and life experiences with a vivid and engaging honesty which includes internal contemplations on the values of marriage, family, and togetherness.
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Summary: Wonderful for anyone who has traveled with their family
Review: I anticipated a literate traveloge (which is certainly there!), but indeed recieved much more. Ms. Hitchcock's insights into the rigurs of family traveling are among the best I've read. I enjoyed this book on so many levels, it is hard to pin them all down. Take it from a stranger...this is a book well worth the read. P.S. I bought two extra copies and sent them to friends with young kids in the hopes of sending them off someday.
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Summary: Intensely Honest and Beautifully Written
Review: I came across this book quite by accident, but once I picked it up I could not put it down. New and experienced sailors will smile and sometimes wince with recognition at the challenges the Hitchcock family faces. Intensely honest and beautifully written, the author confronts us with the challenges of our voyages - whether it be through the Carribean, our marriages, or our time as parents and teachers. I have recommended this book to friends and family, sailors and landlubbers alike. There is so much truth packed in these pages, that I am sure each time I read it - and there is no doubt I will read it many times - I will glean fresh insights from its pages. Thank you, Susan Tyler Hitchcock, for this unexpected delight!
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Summary: I Stayed Up All Night to Read This Book!
Review: I don't usually read an entire book in one sitting, but I found I could not put this one down. Somehow, I felt compelled to make the entire journey--3,400 miles--at once. Susan Tyler Hitchcock has the voice of a poet. The lyrical beauty with which she describes her family's changing dynamic is delicious to savor. She develops her "characters"--her husband, their new friends--believably and fully. And the detailed discussions of life on a sailboat--the 24-hour-a-day attention that it takes, the canned meals, the cabin fever, the storms--made me feel I was there with her. Hitchcock is a woman with a rich inner life. Almost anyone could write a memorable book about the Caribbean scenery. But Susan Tyler Hitchcock's voyage is an inner one, and far more challenging to depict. I am grateful to have been invited along.
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Summary: MEN! Do yourself a favor and read this book.
Review: I found this book to be a great example of what "not" to do when desiring to form a bond of sailing friendship and fun with your spouse or significant other. This is not a "look at the great time we had sailing" book, but rather a true to life story of how the pressures of an already rocky marriage mixed with the stresses of becoming a cruising family influenced this family looking for relief. In some ways, I am not sure they found it.
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Summary: There are better cruising stories
Review: I read Herb Payson's "Blown Away" while sailing (I highly recommend his first book - skip his second) and craved another cruising story for my sailing trip this year. This book, while an OK summer read, fell flat. This book is more about a skittish marriage than what it's like to really sail for months at a time. In both arena's it's thin. But, as I said, an OK summer read and it does give you an overview of the challenges and joys of life on the water.
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Summary: Not a great sailing book more like "self-help afloat."
Review: I really didn't like this book. This isn't so much a book about sailing as it is about marrige counsuling. I never could warm-up to the members of this cruising family and the author's non-stop soul searching was embarrassing. The descriptions of the couple's loving making positively made my skin crawl--yeech! On the whole if I had to go sailing with this family I'd stay home. t
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Summary: SailAmerica chooses Coming About as 1998's best sailing book
Review: In the John Southam Award competition for sailing journalism, sponsored by SailAmerica, Coming About: A Family Passage at Sea won in the category of "extended media," which includes books and websites. This recognition means that the judges found Coming About the year's best book in conveying the joys of sailing to the general public.
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Summary: A family adventure of the best kind!
Review: It is rather easy to find good travel books about fascinating sailing destinations, but it is something special to be given honest insights into the family dynamics of a sailing crew that, over time, became a bonded team. This is a delightful book incorporating family, sailing and travel.
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Summary: Be prepared!
Review: My family and I are planning a sailing trip for a few years and I wanted another perspective on family sailing. After reading this book I honestly did not know whether anyone had a good time on this 9 month adventure. The positive part of the trip was that the children came out of this adventure more experienced with life, etc. However it appeared the trip was a psychological challenge for all. I felt bad for the kids. I cringed everytime their love making came up and not because I am a prude - it was so non-errotic. The author should of left their sex lives out. Similar to having children, sailing for a length of time on a small vessel with four people does not necessarily bring people together unless the relationships are in tact prior. As part of my summer reads, this one was not pleasurable, but painful.
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