Reading the Glass

Elliot Rappaport has sailed as a captain in the US maritime industry since 1992, involved primarily in the training of other mariners aboard a variety of traditional sailing ships. Presently a faculty member at Maine Maritime Academy, preparing cadets for professional careers at sea, he has also worked extensively at the SEA Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, an organization that offers shipboard programs in ocean science and leadership to college undergraduates. A graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Maine, Elliot lives in coastal Maine when not at sea.

This is a must-read even for landlubbers. Booklist, starred review

Vibrant accounts of sailing around the world... Fascinating journeys with an expert guide. Kirkus, starred review

"I loved this book. What a fabulous compendium it is of terror and disaster, expertise and courage, by a man who knows with true intimacy what he calls the vast planetary engine of the weather. Chapter after chapter is filled with a vivid sense of being out at sea in storm and calm and every page has his decades of lived life embedded in it, years and years of looking, responding, making the good and necessary decisions. It feels written, in other words, by a man you would be more than happy to go to sea with." Adam Nicolson, author of Life Between the Tides

Reading the Glass is an extraordinary book by a modern-day Melville whose deep knowledge, boundless curiosity and endearingly wry humor make him the perfect guide to the world beyond our shores. Elliot Rappaport has completely transformed my awareness of the vast reaches of water that dominate our planet's surface, and of the debt we all owe to our ancestors who made a science and an art out of crossing them. I can t recommend this book highly enough. Mark Vanhoenacker, author of Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot and Imagine a City
 
By turns anecdotal, expository, and analytical, Elliot Rappaport's Reading the Glass illuminates the very real challenges of long-distance voyaging posed by fickle weather and a changing climate. Immensely rewarding and entertaining, and graced with vivid turns of phrase, this is one of the best introductions to the seafarer's world to appear in years. Lincoln Paine, author of The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World
 
We live on a planet easy to forget in your secure suburban home, but not out on the open sea. The author provides a gripping account of what weather is, how it feels to be in the middle of it,