Customer Reviews

The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The amazing deluge of tourism each summer truly ignores the elaborate history of some of New England's most beautiful coastline. For many of us who live or travel there when time and traffic allow there is this fine book to fill in the grey areas.

Unfortunately, regional history is not as popular to most readers as a spy novel or biography. This book bounces between the author's journeys in Kayak along the islands and coastline and the chronological history of travellers and settlers to the coast. There are humorous accounts of indian encounters, misguided settlers and an all too unpleasant tale of life aboard the Mayflower. Not all as we had once been told in grammar school.

The endnotes are substantial and the book can at times seem more academic than entertaining. However, I passed this on to two friends and we have laughed and shared our favorite stories over beverages. A good book and a nice read.

The romantic relationship between people and the land under their feet dates back, as the name suggests, to the Romantics of the 19th century. It was a relationship born of the truth that absence makes the heart grow fonder -- as cities grew, man longed for a natural world that was no longer readily at hand. And Cape Cod, that barren, sandy strip the Pilgrims had fled as soon as practicable, became a summer destination of choice for well-to-do New Englanders.

Paul Schneider's The Enduring Shore is the latest tribute to the Cape from one of its inhabitants-by-choice. And, in keeping with the long tradition of such works, it proclaims two truths: things used to be better, but the charms of the Cape endure all the same.

It is an eminently enjoyable fiction, this pretense that the Cape has always and will ever endure. And Schneider is a past master of the romantic form, sweeping the reader along with a well-crafted mix of local color, geographic history, and maybe-true legends. It is, in sum, wonderful summer reading, particularly for those who have themselves long felt some measure of love for the Cape.

For those who find they have enjoyed Schneider's book, I would recommend also Diana Muir's Reflections in Bullough's Pond, which does for New England as a whole what Schneider has done for the Cape in particular.

Romantic times and sunny days, after all, call for remembrance of things past, with a smile.

I am a person who has to be "grabbed" and held by a book, or my life takes over and the book gets lost. Paul Schneider's book not only grabs you, it sings to you. It's more than a history; it's a love song to sea and land, and to the weird and complicated people who have made their lives on and out of Cape Cod and the Islands. What I love most about this book is how it goes into history and out again into the landscape. It allows me to be, in my time, intimate with the wind and waves. Schneider is a very funny writer -- the prose keeps you reading at a good clip. But he's also a poet. This book covers the range of emotions and human interest, it holds you with its passion and its love for the land.

This is the perfect book to take with you on your Cape Cod vacation. It offers lots of interesting tales and stories about life on Cape Cod and the Islands from pre-Colonial times through the present, and also is one of the few books that actually treats the Native Americans in enough depth to provide the reader with an appreciation for how essential the natives' contributions were to the survival of the early European settlers. It also makes it quite clear that the natives no doubt regretted their helpfulness in short order, having been kidnapped, stolen from and otherwised abused by the newcomers very soon after they landed.

I always enjoy reading books about the places I visit while I'm there, so The Enduring Shore was perfect for my vacation to the outer Cape earlier this month. Schneider's discussion of the geology of the Cape is fascinating, and I will look at its cliffs and sandy beaches in a more knowing, deeper way henceforth.

I like to have two or more books going at once, usually one nonfiction and one fiction. A good complementary novel to read in conjunction with The Enduring Shore is William Martin's Cape Cod, which offers an abundance of useful and interesting facts about the Cape while delivering them in the context of a family saga that is perfect for beach reading.

I reecommend The Enduring Shore for anyone who is interested in how the Cape got that way and why it matters to so many of us today.

If you love the Cape, this book will become a part of you. Its combination of history and personal experience is perfect. A fabulous read and a marvelous gift.

This is very pleasant reading, although it isn't history. It is more of a meander along the coast of the Cape and Islands. Paul Theroux expressed it well in his review in the New York Times, calling this a work of "intelligent peculiarity," and complaining that the history of the Cape and Islands that we are promised in the title, is never delivered in the text. What we get instead are Schneider's rather charming musings about topics like Pacific whaling and first encounters between Amerindians and Europeans. As Theroux points out, if someone actually wanted to understand the region, this book would, at best, provide a place to start. I enjoyed it, but on the whole I preferred Reflections in Bullough's Pond. Talk about misleading titles! What were they thinking to stick a word like 'Reflections' on a really fine book?

I thought that Schneider attacks this book with the best of intentions and scores on many points, specifically the history of the Naussets, Champlain's adventure on the Cape and early whaling ships (including the Essex). Where he failed was in the telling: too often he jumped from event to event in a disjointed history or re-related events in a clumsy narrative. Too skimpy to be history, too spotty to cover the entire Cape, I liked this book despite its problems because it gave me some great historical perspectives of the beaches and sea where I live.

I disagree with the previous reviewers on all points but one. Meander hardly does justice. Schneider's prose is enough to put anyone to sleep. As for long summer afternoons on the front porch, if the object is to take a nap, skip this book and get right to the nap. The point I agree with the others on? check out Bullough's Pond, it's a much better read.

A wonderful book, nicely written; it's really hard to put it down. I found most fascinating the details of the native American Indians that lived in this region - the huge number of crops they grew (it will astonish you), how they practiced land conservation, and details that will truly surprise you in many ways. And increase your knowledge of these interesting lands.

I went into Cabbages and Kings to buy this title and, on impluse, also picked up Reflections in Bullough's Pond, mostly because of the beautiful jacket shot. I had not heard anything about the book Bullough's Pond, whereas one can hardly miss hearing about Enduring Shore. What a surprise the two books were. Enduring Shore is a very pleasant read, it takes you along all of the familiar channels of Cape history and lore. It is very nicely written, but there are no surprises here. I do think it is more fun when a book surprises me, dazzles with a bit of lyrical prose, uses a turn of phrase to make me see familiar things in a new light, tells me something that I never knew, or makes me think of something in a fresh light. Bullough's Pond does all of that, Enduring Shore was more like having a friendly chat with an old acquaintance. No surprises, just a very pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon.