
Finding North
How Navigation Makes Us Human
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Narrated by:
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Tom Zingarelli
About this listen
In 1844, George Michelsen Foy's great-great grandfather, captain of a Norwegian cargo ship, perished at sea after getting lost in a snowstorm. Foy decides to unravel the mystery surrounding Halvor Michelsen's death - and the roots of his own obsession with navigation - by re-creating his ancestor's trip using only period instruments.
Beforehand, he meets a colorful cast of characters to learn whether men really have better directional skills than women; how cells, eels, and spaceships navigate; and how tragedy results from GPS glitches. He interviews a cabby who has memorized every street in London, sails on a Haitian cargo sloop, and visits the site of a secret navigational cult in Greece.
At the heart of Foy's story is this fact: Navigation and the brain's memory centers are inextricably linked. As Foy unravels the secret behind Halvor's death, he also discovers why forsaking our navigation skills in favor of GPS may lead not only to Alzheimer's and other diseases of memory but to losing a key part of what makes us human.
©2016 George Michelsen Foy (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Performance
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Performance
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Story
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Performance
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Story
In Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes listeners across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides. In the Arctic, White shimmies under the ice with an Inuit elder to hunt for mussels in the dark cavities left behind at low tide; in China, he races the Silver Dragon, a 25-foot tidal bore that crashes 80 miles up the Qiantang River; in France, he interviews the monks that live in the tide-wrapped monastery of Mont Saint-Michel; in Chile and Scotland, he investigates the growth of tidal power generation.
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1/3 Science and Spirit- 2/3 meaningless details
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On October 1, 2015, Hurricane Joaquin barreled into the Bermuda Triangle and swallowed the container ship El Faro whole, resulting in the worst American shipping disaster in 35 years. No one could fathom how a vessel equipped with satellite communications and a sophisticated navigation system could suddenly vanish - until now. Relying on hundreds of exclusive interviews with family members and maritime experts, as well as the words of the crew members themselves - whose conversations were captured by the ship’s data recorder - journalist Rachel Slade unravels the mystery.
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This Book is Tragic for More Than Just its Story
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Taleisin's Tales
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Including stories from paradise and hard-won lessons in seamanship, Taleisin's Tales reflects back to the first miles Lin and Larry Pardey gained together on the second boat they built lovingly with teak carvel planking over sawn black locust frames. The book includes details from outfitting, provisioning, and final detailing during the early months Lin and Larry spent getting to know their new bluewater cruiser, as well as moments of melancholy as they let go of attachments to their first trusty boat.
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A nice mix of adventure and information.
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A Speck in the Sea
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
I am floating in the middle of the night, and nobody in the world even knows I am missing. Nobody is looking for me. You can't get more alone than that. You can't be more lost. I've got too many people who love me. There's no way I'm dying like this. In the dead of night on July 24, 2013, John Aldridge was thrown off the back of the Anna Mary while his fishing partner, Anthony Sosinski, slept below. As desperate hours ticked by, Sosinski, the families, the local fishing community, and the US Coast Guard in three states mobilized in an unprecedented search effort.
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A Fascinating Survival Story
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Introduction to Sailing
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- Narrated by: Christian Williams
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Introduction to Sailing is veteran sailor Christian Williams’ candid and highly entertaining invitation to boats and the sea. Writing for new sailors of every kind, he evokes the joy of wind and water in an intimate style that begins with dinghies, which he advocates as most fun of all, and continues through cruising boats small and large and for every budget.
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This is the real WHY for starting to sail.
- By Harry S. on 03-23-22
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Finding North
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Lynne Breslin
- 05-19-16
Wise and moving
A wise and moving book. Lyrical , a voyage of insights that transported both to new frontiers and to self. I understood the ineluctable draw of loss and love.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Thomas
- 05-30-16
Don't waste your time or money
What I hoped would be a good sailing story was banal drivel
What I hoped would be a good maritime story was instead banal drivel
7
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