Customer Reviews

On the Water: Discovering America in a Row Boat

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a great read, and it's one of those that you get lost in. The descriptions of Nathaniel Stone's travels and the people he meets come alive in your mind. And contrary to what another reviewer wrote, Zuni is not merely a place where Mr. Stone "went to teach Native Americans," Zuni is and has been his home for many years. He is a respected and well-liked member of the community and has a great many friends and "family" here. And I bet he's even helped butcher a sheep or two. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak about his rowing adventure, you are in for a treat. A wonderful book!!

Have you ever been driving across a bridge and looked up the river and wondered what it would be like to be on the river instead of the road? Well this book will give you a look into what it is like to be on that river. The author does an excellent job painting the picture of isolation and contact with the rest of the world. While the reader does get some feel for what it is like to row for mile after mile, the author does not push the physical requirements too far. The writer treats us with his various encounters with different people along his way while covering a wide range of personalities. If you have wanted to take that long walk (or boat ride) down the road (or river) then this book is for you.

At age ten Nathaniel Stone pictured the eastern United States as an island he could circumnavigate. The author fulfills his childhood vision and chronicles the adventure with boyish enthusiasm in his first book, "On The Water." His seventeen-foot scull departs at the Brooklyn Bridge; Stone states, "I was a late bloomer when it came to anything adventurous." We sympathize as he quickly learns to deal with buoys, massive barges and numerous other obstacles encountered on the ten-month journey via rivers, lakes and canals to the town of Eastport, Maine.

Stone`s writing resonates the beauty of his surroundings; the writing engages the reader to the point of seemingly joining the author on the rowboat. Misadventures occur often along the way; the most notable is Stone being "THROWN OUT" of a small village on the Ohio River. The book reminds us how culturally diverse this country is - a glimpse into the towns that lie near the waterways.

Stone's innate desire to circle the eastern United States is a testament to follow one's dreams - a unique travelogue not in a rush to reach its destination. Several black-and-white sketches by Elizabeth Stone and a map inside the covers is a nice visual touch.

Rowing backwards six thousand miles affords him long periods of solitude within nature. Stone appreciates these solitary moments in the vein of Henry David Thoreau, the naturalist writer and author of "Walden Pond." "I sit up for another stroke, now looking down as the blades ignite swirling pairs of white constellations of phosphorescent plankton . . . `Remember this,' I think to myself."

Bohdan Kot

Being a guy who loves messing around in boats and having traveled overland near many of these places I have been fascinated by his journey. It makes me want to get a canoe, load it with my tent, bag and go. It's a modern version of "The Walk across America" or "Caught on the inside". Part of the reason for only having sketches of the people he met is that on a journey like this one, you don't have time to fully know everyone you meet. Also the book would have been a tome that only the most dedicated would be able to plow through.

A fine read. Because it is episodic it's ideal for picking up when you have an hour and for bedtime reading. It's as close as I want to get to rowing that far, but it let me do it with him without shouldering the chore. He meets many river characters who take him in, share river lore and grub along the way. He's literate while down to earth with his language and insights. Recommended for both the outdoorsman/woman and armchair adventurers.

Stone presents a unique prospective of American people, values and geography. While the book is about a physical feat, the real story lies with the characters and e challenges. If you've seen America fro a bar, train and plane, you're in for a treat!

This is a wonderful book, providing great entertainment while also being thoughtful and reflective. It's a story of a true adventurer and a really authentic individual. I didn't want it to end. Can't imagine anyone who wouldn't enjoy it.

Nat Stone has circumnavigated Island Eastern U.S. in a rowboat (actually, two rowboats) and told his story as Thoreau might have written it if he had ever gotten beyond Walden Pond. The country and the people he sees and interacts with are described in rich and original prose that sometime reads like poetry and always transforms the usual into the extraordinary. You will never again meet a stranger without wondering who the person within might actually be. And you will never again see a seascape or a landscape without lingering at least briefly to savor its beauty. Nat Stone has loaned you his eyes for both the human and the natural wonders of this earth, and you will never see things exactly the same way as you did before reading this masterpiece.

This is the story of a guy who pushed right through all the crap in his dreary schoolteacher's life to do something REALLY HARD, something that no one in his right mind would do, and something that would not pay him a nickel for two years of brutal physical work unless his book sold (which believe me is a really unlikely prospect.) Why he did it, I can't explain. But he did, and then he wrote this wonderful, fun book about it, which I found quite thrilling and inspiring. It's the sort of thing I would like to do, but never will because I am too used to the soft, easy way. I suspect I am not alone in that.

Stone travelled from New York City across northern rivers leading generally to the Mississippi, and with the exception of one short portage he did the whole trip to the big river by rowing a scull. Then he waited out the winter back home up north and started again in the spring. On the return he rowed out of the lake and into the Gulf, then south to the Keys and north again up the entire east coast of the United States. I found his account as compelling as any travelogue not written by Bill Bryson and enjoyed every word.

A wonderful story that inspires the reader to find the capacity and courage to reach further.