A Viking Voyage - In Which an Unlikely Crew of Adventurers Attempts an Epic Journey to

Zusatztext “At times frightening! at times hilarious . . . Always enthralling.” – The Boston Herald “[ A Viking Voyage ] is about a crew of strangers who become best friends! and a man whose fantasies take them on one of the most hilariously strange adventures of their lives.” – Esquire “AN EXCITING ADVENTURE AT SEA . . . [THAT] READS LIKE A HUNTER THOMPSON NOVEL . . . A Viking Voyage is about more than boat construction and male bonding. It’s also about self-doubt! isolation! personal relationships! and growth.” – The Roanoke Times Informationen zum Autor W. Hodding Carter, an epicure of adventure, has spent his life seeking new physical and mental challenges. A native of Greenville, Mississippi, Carter attended Kenyon College and spent two years in Kenya with the Peace Corps. His highly acclaimed pieces for Esquire, M Magazine, Outside, and other national publications have taken him to Burma, to Wales, and into the thick of the Louisiana Oyster Eating Contest (in which he placed second). He is also the author of the book Westward Whoa: In the Wake of Lewis and Clark. He currently lives in Maine with his wife and three daughters. Klappentext Fascinated since childhood with Leif Eriksson's triumphant sailing voyage a thousand years ago from Greenland to North America, Hodding Carter could not shake his admittedly crazy idea of reenacting Eriksson's epic journey in a precise replica of the precarious Viking cargo ship known as a knarr . This extraordinary book is the account of how he pulled it off. By turns thrilling and slapstick, sublime and outrageous, A Viking Voyage is an unforgettable adventure story that will take you to the heart of some of the most magnificent, unspoiled territory on earth, and even deeper, to the heart of a journey like no other. A celebration of the people and places Carter visits and a treasure-trove of fascinating Viking lore, here is an unforgettable story of friendship and teamwork-and the thrill of accomplishing a goal that once seemed impossible. Leseprobe If you are really, truly into Vikings, then you should immediately abandon this book, grab your horned helmet (which no self-respecting Viking actually ever wore, by the way), and go froth at the mouth in some fog-enshrouded ancient rubbish heap like a good little berserker, convinced that you alone have found the much-ballyhooed Vinland. If instead you enjoy tales of quixotic idiocy, passion, determination, frightening beauty, love, loss, enlightenment, failure, and redemption, then read on. This is your story, and I have lived to tell it. These things always begin innocently enough. Sometimes with a mere thought. Why not retrace the Viking voyages to the New World?* I get ideas like this all the time. Some people sit in rush-hour traffic fantasizing about bashing their fellow drivers with a sizable ham hock. When I find myself delayed, I decide it's high time to ride an elephant across Hannibal's route through the Alps, al-though I know nothing about elephants or war. *Some stern people may object, but I use the term "Viking" freely, not only to mean raiders of the sea, but all people during the 700s to the 1100s originating from what is now Scandinavia. I just like retracing the steps that renowned or notorious people once took. I have dogged Lewis and Clark by rubber boat, foot, and horseback from St. Louis to the Pacific, paddled a canoe in Thoreau's wake in the Maine woods, and chased after John Wilkes Booth by minivan in northern Virginia. In the case of the Vikings, I initially did just enough research to find out that Leif Eriksson sailed to a place he called Vinland--a place somewhere along the eastern edge of North America between Labrador and Florida--in the year 1000. He raised a few sod buildings, wintered at his new quarters, and then returned to Green...

Product details

• Authors: W Hodding Carter, W. Hodding Carter
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 02.10.2001
• EAN: 9780345420046
• ISBN: 978-0-345-42004-6
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 139 mm x 210 mm x 17 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Travel > Sports and active travel