Racing Through Paradise: A Pacific Passage

by William F. Buckley Jr.

Book Overview

Racing Through Paradise is the third entry in Bill Buckley's now classic sailing trilogy. It chronicles the author's four thousand-mile sailing voyage across the Pacific with four close friends, his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394557816
• ISBN13: 9780394557816
• Release Date: May 1987
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Off the "Grid" with Buckley

There may be those among us who expect a sailing adventure by William F. Buckley to mirror his proclivity for ornamented literary style. Or maybe some readers need to see his writing through the gauze of Yale. Maybe William F. Buckley should be Christopher Hitchens - as they were both conservative at one time, however Buckley followed the rumline as we say in yachting circles. He remained conservative while writing his 40,000 (plus) columns and 50 books while at the helm of National Review. What we have here is what men and women of the sea dream about; day-to-day stuff upon oceans; reflections on friends and encounters with pedestrians. A certain sophisticated comedy and reflection of the sea. What Mr. Buckley does in "Racing through Paradise" is inform us that busy people still make time for the sea. That busy intellectual people still have a "feel" for social order. That people of means share the sea with all members along the sailing continuum. That even before there was a "grid" sailors like Buckley managed to sail, and answer the mail. This book is sophisticated by its forthright simplicity - a reflection of several minds while on the Pacific. It extends our understanding that even with "position" ocean sailors are subjected to the ambivalence of government; the atmospherics of place, and the personality of encounter. For all who think "Wind" is among the best movies ever, read this book, and know that the "Cup" is not the end game after all.

The NewYorker excerpts were enchanting...

A delightful, real life, father/son saga about a months sail West across the South Pacific; Captained by William F Buckley with a crew comprising his son, Chrisopher Buckley and several other artistic and political luminaries of the 1980's. On this voyage, WFB required each of the crew to keep (and relinquish at journeys end) a personal journal. WFB keeps the writing crisp and engaging by sharing only small portions of these apparently limited and hard won loggings.All in all: A delightfully recounted adventure.I've been looking for this book for years after reading an enchanting three part excerpt of it in the NewYorker: