Synopses & Reviews
Having survived Borneo, Amazonia, and the Congo, Redmond OHanlon now ventures into his own perfect storm in the wildest waters he could find.
His rendezvous with destiny begins aboard a trawler converted for deep-sea fishing at a cost of $3 million which is why its young skippers setting out from Scotlands northern tip when the rest of the fleet is running for safe harbor. Equipped with a fancy Nikon, an excessive supply of socks and no seamanship whatsoever, OHanlon joins a crew of five who stock a bottomless hull with the catch, day after sleepless day, even as the hurricane threatens to wash them overboard. While he helps inventory the creatures of the deepest North Atlantic from jellycats to the wormlike hagfish, unchanged since its evolution more than 500 million years ago his shipmates exchange manic monologues that range from their woeful longing for loyal women to trade laws and complex fishing quotas.
Rich in oceanography, marine biology and mens lives, Trawler reveals once again the inimitable spirit of the man Bill Bryson has called probably the finest writer of travel books in the English language, and certainly the most daring.
Review
"A not-so-long but certainly very strange trip, with all the dark radiance and queer humor of this author's earlier work." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] delightful read for travel aficionados." Library Journal
Review
"Although Trawler is ostensibly an adventure book, it is also one of the most thrilling and inspiring books about science that I've ever read. I came away dreaming of inviting O'Hanlon along on my next trip. Others will too." Bruce Barcott, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Rich in oceanography, marine biology and men's lives, Trawler reveals once again the inimitable spirit of the man Bill Bryson has called "probably the finest writer of travel books in the English language, and certainly the most daring."
About the Author
A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, Redmond O’Hanlon was the natural history editor of
The Times Literary Supplement for fifteen years
. He lives near Oxford, England, with his wife and their two children. “Among contemporary travel writers,” according to
The Washington Post, “he has the best nose for the globe’s precious few remaining blank spots . . . Long may he trudge and paddle.”
The following books by O’Hanlon are available in Vintage paperback:
Into the Heart of Borneo
“A learned and sensitive book as well as a knockabout farce.” –The New York Review of Books
In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon
“When Evelyn Waugh . . . and Graham Greene traveled, the going was still rough . . . Redmond O’Hanlon, hacking his way up an unmapped tributary of the Amazon, fearful (and not without good reason) of ending his days in someone’s cooking pot, has managed to keep that tradition alive.” –Jonathan Raban
No Mercy: A Journey into the Heart of the Congo
“Old-fashioned, gut-wrenching, real-life adventure . . . As much an inner journey that explores fear, religion, magic and childhood as it is a dangerous trek into the depths of the jungle.” –Time