Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea

Rating:
Summary: Great book !!!
Review: This is a very exciting true-story book. Callahan can describe his feeling in that moment and also a situation that most of us couldn't and even don't want to be with it. When you read this book you will feel as if you were with him ,feel his pain. Highly recommend

Rating:
Summary: a journey of physical survival that shows the 99%mental
Review: This novel is purely excellent revealing the true side of a survival story. Callahan loses his small sail boat only days into a journey across the atlantic. He manages to escape his sinking ship with his life and board his emergency life raft with some excellently prepared bare essentials. The book shows Callahan's true life struggle for his life and his mind. Semi-daily logs compose this book showing the internal workings of his mind and his daily chores to maintain his life. The struggle is a very personal once in which Callahan puts some things in life that we take for granted day to day that would mean the world to him during his 76 days at sea. A wonderful story pitted against impossible odd. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys nature and self exploration.

Rating:
Summary: Mans determination to survive
Review: Well told story by the man who experienced 76 days alone in a rubber raft in the Atlantic Ocean. Callahan was fortunate to have been able to have onboard a well-made rubber inflatable raft with built in solar stills for water. He also was able to grab a speargun before his boat went down. Just how he was able to survive and keep his mind, plus how nature provided for him is truly amazing.

Rating:
Summary: Exciting read but in the end not totally satisfying.
Review: While the story presented here in 'Adrift' is riveting and exciting, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't find any compassion for the author. It may be that for some people to survive, to not give up, requires an enormous sense of self importance, self involvement, and even arrogance. Regardless, the 'voice' the author wrote in was not sympathetic. Other books of survival, like Joe Simpson's book "Touching the Void" or books about singlehanded sailing like John Beattie's "The Breath of Angels" are written in a voice with some humility; you 'care' about the authors and pull for them to survive and get through their passages and ordeals. At the end of reading those books you feel uplifted, encouraged, enobled even; that the human race can produce such people. But that wasn't the case here. I think this would have been a much better book if it had been written biographically, that is, by someone else, rather than as an autobiography. Having said that, the story is still remarkable and the writing is, from a technical standpoint, very good. You won't be wasting your time or money to get it. Just be prepared if you find yourself occasionally rooting for the shark.