That the author is also the publisher of this audiobook tells you something before the first chapter. James Baldwin wrote the memoir, and James Baldwin is also the publisher of record. What he did not do is read it. Spencer King narrates thirteen hours and two minutes of a book written entirely in the first person, about two years spent alone on a twenty-eight-foot sailboat called Atom. Somebody else's voice standing in for a private ocean of solitude is a real decision, and it deserves a paragraph.
What the description sells is a circumnavigation, and what three of the five readers describe is something else. Stephen G. Franks expected mostly sailing and found a book that moves through adventures and relationships on land as much as at sea. Randy Gardner was unsure about the added dimension of the islands and ended up pulled in by the discovery of cultures and individuals. Baldwin walked inland wherever he made landfall, which the blurb calls unique in the literature of circumnavigators, and it is the part that stuck with people.
Nothing about the sailing is technical, and it is the first thing to know. Stephen G. Franks puts it precisely: the book made sailing the globe appear rather easy, and that reader could not tell whether Baldwin left out the stressful parts or was simply lucky. The recommendation attached to that four-star review is the most useful line in the whole column. For a contrast, it says, try Webb Chiles and Storm Passage. Anyone who wants the weather front and center now knows where to look. That is a generous thing for a four-star review to do.
Every reviewer who talks about the prose likes it. Roberto praises vivid detail on islands, cultures, fauna and flora, calls the diction varied, and senses a sharp intellect behind the writing. Dreugen found the book so quotable that highlighted passages ended up emailed to friends. Gloria Blier describes reading it as sailing alongside Baldwin on Atom, hearts pounding when the going gets rough, sun and sea spray on your face. That is a strong endorsement of a text, and it is what a recording has to convert into sound.
What Works
One argument for the audio edition is the book's own shape. A circumnavigation memoir is episodic by nature: an island, a passage, a port, another island. Thirteen hours splits comfortably into the kind of listening you do while doing something else, and nothing here depends on a plot you have to hold in your head. The first-person intimacy lives in the sentences, so a stand-in voice has less to fight against than the premise might suggest.
Two things the description promises are worth holding it to. The first is that Baldwin was as broke as he dared to be, which sets the tone: this is not a funded expedition with a support team. The second is the inland walking, which the blurb calls unique in the literature of circumnavigators, and which produces the danger, humor, friendship and romance the description lists in that order. Romance is the one item on that list none of the reviews takes up directly.
Most of what makes this memoir unusual is the age of the person having it. Baldwin was twenty-five, sailing a trusty but aging twenty-eight-foot boat, and the description frames the enterprise as setting out toward youthful dreams to meet the life he imagined. That is a young man's sentence, and it explains why the book keeps stopping to think, and why it so rarely stops to explain a repair. Randy Gardner rates the ending among the best that reader had read.
Things to Know Before Starting Across Islands and Oceans
Both the counter and the dates on this listing need explaining. The badge shows 4.5 above a single logged vote, and a lone whole-star grade has no way of producing a half. Below it sit five graded reviews. More striking is when they were written: the newest is dated October 2014 and the oldest November 2012, while this recording is dated September 2017. The entire column closes almost three years before the audiobook it now sits under existed. Two entries even name a print page count or an e-book purchase.
By way of a small discrepancy, compare two claims about the hiking. The description says Baldwin set out to hike across every island that he visits. Randy Gardner counts it differently, reporting that he hiked to all but one of the mountain peaks of the islands he sailed to. Every island and all but one peak are not the same promise, and the difference is exactly the kind of thing a blurb rounds off. The reviewer sounds like the more careful reader, and neither version changes the book.
At thirteen hours and two minutes, the pacing question matters, and one reviewer supplies an odd data point for it. Dreugen calls the book a quick read, attributing that to momentum, never to length, and cites a modest three hundred and sixty-nine pages. A print page count on an audio listing is a small thing, but it is the clearest sign of where these five reviews came from. What thirteen hours actually feels like, nobody here has said, and that is a gap you close on your own.
Who It's For
On the record here, three groups will get the most from this. Sailors and would-be sailors who already know the genre and want a voice inside it, which is Roberto and Gloria Blier. Travel readers who care more about the islands than the rigging, since the land material is where this book parts company with every other circumnavigation. And anyone drawn to the solitude question, because the description names it plainly as a greater voyage to explore his own private ocean of solitude. If you want blue-water seamanship and nothing else, this is the wrong memoir. The rigging is scenery; the people are the point.
In the end this is a book about a young man walking inland while his boat waits at anchor, and it is unusually good company for thirteen hours. The self-published record around it is messy: a badge that cannot come from one vote, five reviews written years before the recording, a page count where a runtime belongs. None of that touches the writing. Whether the casting is right depends on how badly you wanted the author himself. Spencer King stands in for a voice that spent two years mostly talking to itself.
Before You Listen
Are the reviews about this audiobook edition?
No. All five were filed between November 2012 and October 2014, while the recording itself is dated September 2017. Two even cite a page total or a digital purchase. Read those five grades as judgments of James Baldwin's writing, and take Spencer King's work as something nobody on this listing has judged.
Does the author narrate his own audiobook?
He does not. James Baldwin is credited as author and as publisher, while Spencer King is the narrator for all thirteen hours and two minutes. For a memoir written entirely in the first person, about two years of solitude aboard a twenty-eight-foot boat, that gap between the voice and the person is worth knowing in advance.
Which other sailing book do the reviews recommend?
One reviewer names a specific contrast: Storm Passage by Webb Chiles, about a transglobal solo voyage. The recommendation comes with a reason, since this book made circling the globe appear rather easy and that reader wanted the harder version alongside it. Readers who want the ocean at its worst should begin there.
