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Keep Australia On Your Left by: Eric Stiller List Price: CDN$ 36.95 Price: CDN$ 35.95 You Save: CDN$1.00 ( 3%)Prices subject to change. |
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Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 919.40466092 EAN: 9780312874582 ISBN: 0312874588 Label: Forge books Manufacturer: Forge books Number Of Pages: 416 Publication Date: August 29, 2000 Publisher: Forge books Studio: Forge books Sales Rank: 457290 Browse for similar items by category:
Editorial Review: From Amazon.com: It sounds like a pilot for a new Fox network live broadcast: a self-searching Manhattan kayak salesman teams up with a rowdy Australian male model to circumnavigate Australia by kayak. Thankfully, though, chest beating and contrived conflict are absent in Eric Stiller's true account of his attempt to kayak the 10,000 miles around Australia with Aussie Tony Brown. What we get instead is a look at the tedium, death-defying stamina, and hilarious blunderings of two men with little experience to prepare them for their chosen expedition. "The Australian coastline is a nightmare of tightly coiled inlets and rocky coves and sheer rock cliff faces and bays as huge and forbidding as Saharan deserts," Stiller muses while he kicks off his training with Brown by paddling around Manhattan. Raised in a family that sells Klepper kayaks, the German-made folding expedition kayaks known for their resilience in violent conditions, Stiller is an expert on the technical details of the equipment. He is not, he admits, accustomed to spending more than three months in a 17-foot-long kayak with anyone, much less Brown, a natural athlete filled with joie de vivre whose navigational strategy is simply, "Just keep Australia on your left, mate." The curious pair encounters an impressive variety of harrowing sea conditions. The first month is a daily battle against capsizing during beach landings amid Australia's legendary skyscraper-high waves. Marathon paddling sessions through maddening back-eddies rip open their hands and scrape their torsos. The inhospitable Tasman Sea is rife with deadly creatures, including crocodiles, sharks, and sea wasps, a toxic jellyfish with tentacles several meters long. At one point the two must cross the Gulf of Carpenteria, the most arduous leg of the trip, requiring seven days on the water with no land in sight. For all their travails, however, there is relief in the form of friendly hosts (nearly everyone they meet is happy to have a smelly kayak team at the dinner table), striking scenery, wild nights in isolated cities, and the personal reckoning that comes with an effort of this magnitude. --Lolly Merrell Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Discovering OnomatopeoiaNo, that's not another name for Australia. It's the use of words whose sound suggests the sense. Mr. Stiller employs the technique ad nauseum. Never have I read a paragraph that consists entirely of the letters B (1 time), O (6 times), M (9 times), S (22 times), and H (5 times). You can imagine my suspense, which was only heightened by a paragraph on the next page, as follows: "Whoooowhhooooouuuuuouuuwhouuuuuuu." This goes on and on. There is a fascinating story underlying the poor writing style. The technique is bad, as is the failure to provide more insight into the effect of the journey on character development. Ultimately, these issues render the book nearly unreadable. Rating:  - The Adventure of an adventure...Let me first start off by saying that I have a little more insight on this author. I lived next door to him most of my childhood. We played basketball, electric football, touch football and even street hockey. This book does not surprise me about him. Growing up, he was very intense. When Eric had an idea that got into his head, he took it upon himself to plan, re-plan and do whatever it takes to get the job done. My review title is a summary of what this book is really about. I too, had the opportunity to go one an adventure with one individual. Our transportaion were bicycles. I surely learned toleration, acceptance, frustration, compassion and any other feeling for the other person. The journey is only part of the story. There was a definite ... Read More: Rating:  - Why not read Paul Caffyn's books ?Paul has paddled around the South Island of New Zealand in 1977. In 1979, he paddled around the North Island and Stewart Island. He went on to paddle around Great Britain in 1980 (in an English-built Nordkapp), Australia in 1982, Japan in 1985, and around the entire coastline of Alaska between 1989 and 1991. All solo. (...) Rating:  - a great story, but...this is a great story marred by incessant whinging. mr. stiller's priorities seemed to be the number of kilometers acheived per day and making a relationship withstand the strain of time and distance. very little was mentioned about wildlife and sights along the way, even less about the author's personal growth. transcribing your journal is not a literary effort! however, the accomplishment of these two fellows was outstanding! Rating: - Whiny man-boy gets in over his headWhile, I can't say this book was a bad read, I can say that it was uninspiring. For me the biggest problem with the book is that Mr. Stiller comes off as whiny, confused, self-centered, and well childish in almost all respects. The superfluos details of his failed love interest is a case in point. Did the guy have any real hope of maintaning a relationship w/ a bartender he hooked up witht he night before he left. More time spent on the imapct of being away from family and serious freinds would have shown a greater depth of thought. Also, the breif periods of self-reflection are not well integrated and don't show any actual growth of charater. I know this is real life, but in a book this long drama counts. Also, Mr. Stiller is no Hans Junger ... Read More: |
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