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Coasting: Running Around the Coast of Britain – Life, Love and (Very) Loose Plans

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In a world where so much is about social media impressions, Likes and curating a version of life that represents 'the ideal', Elise strikes a balance that is honest and raw but has the keen edge and purity to make you say 'what can I do that might make me feel this way, too? I enjoyed the autobiographical sections,his school and father and also the discussion of the changing role of the Church of England and his meeting with Philip Larkin in Hull. When he actually talks about his adventures and the experience of sailing around the British coast, this book is excellent. As the publisher of Raban’s back catalog, Barnaby Rogerson of Eland Books, said to me over breakfast at London’s Exmouth Market, “Anyone who has read Coasting would not be surprised by Brexit.

Other cancelled products: If you want to cancel products that are not damaged or incorrectly supplied, then you must inform us of this within seven working days following the date of receipt in accordance with the Distance Selling Regulations or otherwise as soon as possible.It's almost inevitable but when you spend so much time alone your mind is going to travel back in time to past events, each time his thoughts end up with his difficult relationship with his dad, it was fun to read him meeting up with his dad and realising they seem to have swopped places. Elise Downing, with absolutely no ultra-running experience, unable to read a map and having never pitched a tent alone before, set off to run 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain, carrying her kit on her back. Sailing along the coast with charts and a hand bearing-compass, and talking to the people he meets in harbour towns and failing fishing ports, Raban comes to understand England and the English, and his own sense of national belonging. They love fine social distinctions and divisions and are snobbishly wedded to an antique system of caste and class . Running 5,000 miles is a truly remarkable achievement, and the fact that Elise emerged from it with a smile on her face and a total lack of ego speaks wonders to her character.

Not referring to himself of course, but most of the characters he connects with in the book are men, and he talks about his relationship with his boat as if it were a person. A lot of the reviewers on here seem to hate it for being more about her and less about the coast or even because of the critiques she makes about herself throughout.However hard, tough, excruciating and doubt-driven a challenge might be, at heart it's a funny, funny story. Reading this book at the moment and finding it very satisfying and up there with Passage to Juneau - by the same author and in a similar vein. I'd bought it second-hand some forty or more years ago, hoping, I think, for some description of places as approached from the sea. Raban has coasted through yet another term,” his housemaster’s report said, “and I can hold out little hope for prospects in the forthcoming examinations. Occasional binge drinking alongside of a breakup with an abusive boyfriend features prominently in the narrative.

He charts the far reaches of solitude with profound insight, humour and immense intellectual resource. It made me think that maybe I could do an adventure too- even I can read a map better than ED could back then! Coasting is half travel book, half autobiography, half novel (never mind the arithmetic), marvellously written and superbly constructed. It’s not even really aimed at your typical armchair traveller — compared to The Kingdom by the Sea, there’s less description, more introspection. Fine to hate the Thatcher government and the Falklands War, but there are 60 million other people here.

She also ran a lot of it with others who followed her journey on social media and who she’d met as part of the Yes Tribe. Six months later Elise set off, with absolutely no ultra-running experience, unable to read a map and having never pitched a tent alone before. As such, this was an enjoyable read - not exactly awe-inspiring but it kept me interested throughout the story and some bits were particularly funny, relatable or even insightful. He was educated at the same minor, public school as his father – an inexplicable parental decision given what he had to endure there. Set in the 1980s when I was a kid it transported me back to an age when the Sun ruled and Thatcher was at the peak of her powers.

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