Watching for Mermaids David H Roper 9780615547640 Books
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As a young boy, rounding a bend in a remote Maine cove, Dave Roper stumbled upon two mermaids. No one believed him then. No one believes him now. But he kept watching and wondering what is imagined and what is real? And while he watched and wondered during 50 years of waterborne life – as a boy, a teen, an adult, a father – what he pulled from the sea was not another mermaid, but the mystery, possibility, romance, joy, fear, and uncertainty that mermaids represent. Based on real experiences, these 30 stories take you on that journey. Once aboard you will Share the fantasy world of a teenage solo cruising sailor as he meets his biggest challenge a 22 year old woman. Enter the frenzied mind of a young man who falls overboard 300 miles from shore at night and looks death in the eye. Push down a few beers with Big Red, a legendary Mississippi River pilot, and experience the hard-scrabble world of river life. Climb aboard a 135 foot Mississippi River sternwheeler headed straight into a tornado, with 300 oblivious wedding guests on board. Join a young delivery skipper as he takes two very uncertain aspiring voyagers on world’s shortest circumnavigation attempt… aboard a floating Winnebago. Probe deep up a saltwater creek to meet the reclusive King of Yurtdom and his technology-free world of Mongolian tribal huts. Experience a 50th wedding anniversary at sea and a coincidence right out of the Twilight Zone. Cheer for an octogenarian as his grandson kidnaps him from the clutches of a nursing home for one long last sail on his old wooden sloop. So fill your favorite mug, settle into that stuffed reading chair, poke the stove a few times, and dive into Dave Roper’s new book, Watching for Mermaids.
Watching for Mermaids David H Roper 9780615547640 Books
After reading this book, I bought two copies, one for my father and one for a friend of mine who is a avid sailer. The short stores are adventuous, humorous and heartwarming. His stories are about the life and wisdom one gets while sailing and being close to the sea. He writes in such a way that you really feel like you are right there with him, watching mermaids and having "whalegasms." Roper's style of writing reminds me a little of Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods), homey and accessible. Here is a writer with heart and the love and respect he shows for his father, mother, wife, family and friends through his stories about them is inspiring. The book is divided into four parts: Childhood, Youth, Adulthood, and Old Age. It's lovely to be able to view a whole lifetime in 170 pages. And get ready to learn a lot about sailing. I loved the story about him finding mermaids on an island while sailing with his dad as a boy. Roper really made me want to believe as he did as a child, that he actually saw two mermaids. And who knows, maybe he did.Product details
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Tags : Watching for Mermaids [David H. Roper] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. As a young boy, rounding a bend in a remote Maine cove, Dave Roper stumbled upon two mermaids. No one believed him then. No one believes him now. But he kept watching and wondering: what is imagined and what is real? And while he watched and wondered during 50 years of waterborne life – as a boy,David H. Roper,Watching for Mermaids,Points East Publishing, Inc.,0615547648,Fiction - General,Fiction Sea Stories,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Sea Stories
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Watching for Mermaids David H Roper 9780615547640 Books Reviews
David Roper's first book of fiction, Watching for Mermaids, arranges thirty of his semi-autographical short-short stories into four groupings, each named for a principal phase of the first-person narrator's life. Childhood, Youth, Adulthood, and Old Age. To his first, the book's title story which begins with how, at nine years old after rowing ashore while sailing with his father along the coast of Maine, he did see two mermaids, he adds an epilogue saying how now, at age 60, he still "watches and wonders."
Some of these stories previously appeared under Dave's byline in "Points East," a New England boating monthly. Others are new. Each has a nautical motif and reads as if Dave were telling it at dusk as he and the reader huddle by the wood-burning cabin stove aboard his 32-foot sloop at anchor in a snug Maine coastal harbor.
Dave is an alert, cheerful, interesting man, just as engaging in person as each of these stories is in its telling. Dave's narratives exhibit the succinct expository style by which Hemingway revolutionized American writing. Dave relies heavily on colloquial dialogue to whisk the reader forward in his tale. He writes like he is in person - cheerfully, engagingly, alertly, always a joy.
The only fault of Watching for Mermaids might be that it isn't longer. We must hope for its first sequel, soon to be followed by the next, and then another.
Some say that living your hobby is the ultimate happiness; but in a goldlocks universe, your life would segment into your vocation and your avocation, just right. I've ramped up my long interest in sailing over the past few years as I've come to live on the waterfront in Boston. A friend who's noticed this has sent me David Roper's new book. If you're a sailor or ever wanted to be a sailor you should read this book. If you've ever wanted to do some special thing, even if it's not sailing, you should read this book so you can experience what getting it just about right is like. There are 30 tales; some are better than others. Most of us won't agree on which ones these are. That's good, too. I'm going to like David Roper when I meet him. You'll think so too.
A gentle book written by a local guy--recommend it for those days when reality demands you think about something else and remember the slap of the bay on the vessel's hull.
Watching for Mermaids took me back to a day when I brought home my first boat, an eight foot rowboat that I traded for my bicycle. Two quarts of paint,(red for the outside and grey for the seats and inside) made her shipshape. My six foot five dad who didn't swim sat proudly in the stern, as I rowed across Sesuit Harbour. Our feet were getting wet as the seams along the floor let in water. In the next two week we were looking at a Wiano Junior sloop that was to become my first sailboat, and so began my life of sailing. The memories that David Roper related in Watching for Mermaids paralleled my sailing life taking me to the coves and harbors of the New England coast raising emotions in my mind and heart. Thanks for a wonderful cruise,
I'm a high-maintenance reader; I've read so long and so much that I sometimes find even highly touted books a bit disappointing. Not this time! This book contains a mix of personal essays and 4 fiction pieces (try to figure out which they are) focusing on the writer's lifelong experience of sailing in New England waters. The writer is so kind, calm, engaging and funny that you seem to sit in his presence as you read, and you like and trust him utterly, even though sometimes he slips a few fish stories by you. Roper seems a local guy, a salt from Marblehead, but underneath his unpretentious and sometimes self-deprecating style, he's a citizen of the world -- full of compassion for the globe and all its inhabitants. He describes the boats he's owned in loving detail and you grow to love them too. Same with his family and friends. This is a true feel-good book for the winter fireside or summer beach chair, but it's not sentimental nor does it turn away from the pain in life. Highly recommended. By the way, the cover photo is really of him. I emailed him and he answered that it was ... of course I believe him.
Watching for Mermaids is a captivating group of short stories, rich in sailing yore and revealing in matters of Life and character. The author, Dave Roper is a seasoned sailor who can spin a yarn, not merely to show his impressive Sailing experience, but for how they plot the course of his life. With a style that is reminiscent of Jack London blended with the terse declarative sentences that echo Hemingway, these short stories inspect the romantic dream and dwell on the affectionate reality of friends and family. Roper takes us on a journey of the cherished harbors and people at a refreshing pace that always ends with a twist and unexpected nuance.
After reading this book, I bought two copies, one for my father and one for a friend of mine who is a avid sailer. The short stores are adventuous, humorous and heartwarming. His stories are about the life and wisdom one gets while sailing and being close to the sea. He writes in such a way that you really feel like you are right there with him, watching mermaids and having "whalegasms." Roper's style of writing reminds me a little of Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods), homey and accessible. Here is a writer with heart and the love and respect he shows for his father, mother, wife, family and friends through his stories about them is inspiring. The book is divided into four parts Childhood, Youth, Adulthood, and Old Age. It's lovely to be able to view a whole lifetime in 170 pages. And get ready to learn a lot about sailing. I loved the story about him finding mermaids on an island while sailing with his dad as a boy. Roper really made me want to believe as he did as a child, that he actually saw two mermaids. And who knows, maybe he did.
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