George Grey has been abroad for 40 years. He returns home nursing a vision of an England that has all but vanished. Everything seems cold and hostile. Moreover, George can't seem to make heads or tails of his only daughter, nor she him. Then George hatches his plan! He will escape--to the sea. Once embarked, George conjures up his earlier life--and the characters and events of the past become subtly, intricately interwoven with the demons and uncertainties of the present. These confused daydreams counterpoint to his growing command of his boat and love of the sea. "Engaging, eventful, often very funny and quite beautifully written." (The London Times)

Foreign land

Literature & Fiction

RABAN, JONATHAN

Contemporary

Elisabeth Sifton / Viking

Put Jonathan Raban on a boat and the results will be fascinating, and never more so than when heâ€™s sailing around the serpentine, 2,000-mile coast of his native England. In this acutely perceived and beautifully written book, the bestselling author of Bad Land turns that voyageâ€“which coincided with the Falklands war of 1982-into an occasion for meditations on his country, his childhood, and the elusive notion of home. Whether heâ€™s chatting with bored tax exiles on the Isle of Man, wrestling down a mainsail during a titanic gale, or crashing a Scottish house party where the kilted guests turn out to be Americans, Raban is alert to the slightest nuance of meaning. One can read Coasting for his precise naturalistic descriptions or his mordant comments on the new England, where the principal industry seems to be the marketing of Englishness. But one always reads it with pleasure.

Coasting

Travel

Collins, Harvill

For Love and Money is the 'part case history, part memoir' of a modern man of letters: a selection of Jonathan Raban's very best essays, reportage, travel writings and literary criticism, linked with a narrative thread that bravely attempts the agonizing and revelatory question 'Why do you write?' 'His writing articulates a style of humane and witty conversation: he excels at the revealing anecdote, the smart phrase, the art of happy extravagance. And by being perhaps the only critic of calibre who is not an egomaniac, his judgements emerge as the elegant ponderosities of an intelligent reader - and not from a critic at all' Roger Lewis, Punch 'You see with pleasure how reading has shaped without subduing his style. Raban is never guilty of supposing that he can use lower writing powers because what he's doing is only journalism. The splices are excellent. Raban is interesting everywhere' Frank Kermode, London Review of Books 'A marvellously absorbing anthology which leaves you eager for Raban's next haul of sightings and soundings' Times Literary Supplement 'A marvellous writer. On books and travel he is spellbinding' Sunday Times

For love & money: writing, reading, travelling 1969-1987

Raban's documentary portrait of metropolitan life written as part thesis,part reportage and part autobiography.

Soft City

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Harpercollins

Fontana/Collins

The author describes his life as a writer, his experiences sailing around Europe, and his observations on literature

For Love & Money: A Writing Life 1969-1989

Biographies & Memoirs

Relates the author's experiences as he traveled through the United States to discover the essence of the American identity

Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America

History

Americas

Old Glory: An American Voyage

United States

Perennial

Product DetailsPaperback Publisher: Perennial (May 1992) Language: English ISBN-10: 0060981024 ISBN-13: 978-0060981020 Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces

For Love and Money: A Writing Life

Literary

A New York Times Notable Book"In an era of jet tourism, [Jonathan Raban] remains a traveler-adventurer in the tradition of  .  .  .  Robert Louis Stevenson." --The New York Times Book Review In 1782 an immigrant with the high-toned name J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur--"Heartbreak" in English--wrote a pioneering account of one European's transformation into an American. Some two hundred years later Jonathan Raban, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, arrived in Crèvecoeur's wake to see how America has paid off for succeeding generations of newcomers. The result is an exhilarating, often deliciously funny book that is at once a travelogue, a social history, and a love letter to the United States.        In the course of Hunting Mr. Heartbreak, Raban passes for homeless in New York and tries to pass for a good ol' boy in Alabama (which entails "renting" an elderly black lab). He sees the Protestant work ethic perfected by Korean immigrants in Seattle--one of whom celebrates her new home as "So big! So green! So wide-wide-wide!"--and repudiated by the lowlife of Key West.  And on every page of this peerlessly observant work, Raban makes us experience America with wonder, humor, and an unblinking eye for its contradictions. "Raban delivers himself of some of the most memorable prose ever written about urban America." --Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times"When Raban describes America and Americans, he is unfailingly witty and entertaining." --Salman Rushdie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by RABAN, JONATHAN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by RABAN, JONATHAN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by RABAN, JONATHAN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Foreign land

Coasting

For love & money: writing, reading, travelling 1969-1987

Soft City

Soft City

For Love & Money: A Writing Life 1969-1989

Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America

Old Glory: An American Voyage

For Love and Money: A Writing Life

Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America