The Happy Isles of Oceania

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547525184
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 731

Book Description
The author of The Great Railway Bazaar explores the South Pacific by kayak: “This exhilarating epic ranks with [his] best travel books” (Publishers Weekly). In one of his most exotic and adventuresome journeys, travel writer Paul Theroux embarks on an eighteen-month tour of the South Pacific, exploring fifty-one islands by collapsible kayak. Beginning in New Zealand's rain forests and ultimately coming to shore thousands of miles away in Hawaii, Theroux paddles alone over isolated atolls, through dirty harbors and shark-filled waters, and along treacherous coastlines. Along the way, Theroux meets the king of Tonga, encounters street gangs in Auckland, and investigates a cargo cult in Vanuatu. From Australia to Tahiti, Fiji, Easter Island, and beyond, this exhilarating tropical epic is full of disarming observations and high adventure.

The Happy Isles of Oceania

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241964210
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 808

Book Description
Paul Theroux invites us to join him on one of his most exotic and tantalizing adventures exploring the coasts and blue lagoons of the Pacific Islands, and taking up residence to discover the secrets of these isles. Theroux is a mesmerizing narrator – brilliant, witty, keenly perceptive as he floats through Gauguin landscapes, sails in the wake of Captain Cook and recalls the bewitching tales of Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson. Alone in his kayak, paddling to seldom visited shores, he glides through time and space, discovering a world of islands, their remarkable people, and in turn, happiness. ‘A sharp, fascinating and highly entertaining book ... Theroux at his best’ Daily Telegraph.

The Happy Isles of Oceania

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0140159762
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 808

Book Description
This travel book follows Paul Theroux's explorations of the Pacific islands by collapsible kayak. Paddling through the islands, he also finds an unusual melting pot of cultures and contrasts.

The Happy Isles of Oceania

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618658985
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 532

Book Description
Beginning in New Zealand and coming to shore in Hawaii, the author explores fifty-one islands along the way in a collapsible kayak.

Sunrise with Seamonsters

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395415016
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
" ... Collection of decidedly opinionated articles, essays, and ruminations, spanning two decades ..."--Page 4 of cover

The Great Railway Bazaar

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 054752515X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
The acclaimed author recounts his epic journey across Europe and Asia in this international bestselling classic of travel literature: “Compulsive reading” (Graham Greene). In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on a four-month journey by train from the United Kingdom through Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In The Great Railway Bazaar, he records in vivid detail and penetrating insight the many fascinating incidents, adventures, and encounters of his grand, intercontinental tour. Asia's fabled trains—the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express—are the stars of a journey that takes Theroux on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.

The Pacific Alone

Author: Dave Shively
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493026828
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
Winner of the 2019 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature! In the summer of 1987 Ed Gillet achieved what no person has accomplished before or since, a solo crossing from California to Hawaii by kayak. Gillet, at the age of 36 an accomplished sailor and paddler, navigated by sextant and always knew his position within a few miles. Still, Gillet underestimated the abuse his body would take from the relentless, pounding, swells of the Pacific, and early into his voyage he was covered with salt water sores and found that he could find no comfortable position for sitting or sleeping. Along the way he endured a broken rudder, among other calamities, but at last reached Maui on his 63rd day at sea, four days after his food had run out. Dave Shively brings Gillet’s remarkable story to life in this gripping narrative, based on exclusive access to Gillet’s logs as well as interviews with the legendary paddler himself.

Hotel Honolulu

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547526334
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Book Description
A writer turned Hawaiian hotel manager observes the many lives that pass through his rooms in this novel by the author of The Great Railway Bazaar. A New York Times Notable Book In this wickedly satiric romp, a down-on-his-luck writer finds escape from his life as the manager of a low-rent hotel a few blocks from the beach in Waikiki. His boss is quick to explain that the Hotel Honolulu is a multistory establishment—and the writer soon discovers just how many stories are contained in its walls. Honeymooners, vacationers, wanderers, mythomaniacs, soldiers, and families all check in. Like the Canterbury pilgrims, every guest has come in search of something, whether it’s sun, love, happiness, or objects of unnameable longing. And every guest—not to mention the staff, the owner, and the author himself—has a story. By turns hilarious, ribald, tender, and tragic, Hotel Honolulu offers a unique glimpse into the psychological landscape of an American paradise. “A sun-soaked Decameron.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Complete Folding Kayaker, Second Edition

Author: Ralph Diaz
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071435743
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
"An encyclopedia of invaluable knowledge."--Canoe & Kayak Folding kayaks are the only seaworthy boats you can store in the corner of a small closet and carry to the bay, lake, river, or ocean of your choice. Ralph Díaz, editor and publisher of the Folding Kayaker newsletter for more than ten years, has used and worked on nearly all of the folding kayak models available and knows all the ins and outs of choosing, assembling, paddling, traveling, modifying, and maintaining them. The Complete Folding Kayaker, the first guide to choosing, using, and enjoying this most liberating of personal watercraft, is now updated with more boat reviews, more modification tips from readers of Folding Kayaker, and a new chapter on assembly. So pack your kayak for your next adventure on the water! "Indispensable."--Atlantic Coastal Kayaker "Ralph has written, quite literally, the folding kayaker's bible."--Robert Huszar, ANorAK "An essential resource for anyone interested in buying a foldable."--Outdoor Traveler "This book is the one to get if you want to find out about folding kayaks."--Cape Codder

Under the Wave at Waimea

Author: Paul Theroux
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0358446287
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 421

Book Description
From legendary writer Paul Theroux comes an atmospheric novel following a big-wave surfer as he confronts aging, privilege, mortality, and whose lives we choose to remember.