Wolff, Geoffrey The Hard Way Around

Wolff, Geoffrey The Hard Way Around
Knopf see Random 2010 218p 25.95
978-1-4000-4342-2 adult Biography E-BN


This is a biography of Captain Joshua Slocum, a boat-builder and adventurer who circumnavigated the world by himself in 1895 at the age of 51. This beautifully written biography is clearly a labor of love on the part of Wolff, who freely editorializes on Slocum’s life and on others’ writings about Slocum throughout the book. It will be above the heads of most high-school students, but is recommended for that special intellectual young adult who is fascinated by history and by larger-than-life historical figures. Occasionally the reader may have to look up a reference or a vocabulary word (such as “lagniappe”). It is recommended that this be read alongside Slocum’s own “Sailing Alone Around the World”. Kennedy, Carol