Four Books To Read On Your Sailing Getaway
By Jenny Wilson published on 12 August 2017
Getting lost in a great read is an ideal accompaniment to relaxing by the shoreline or soaking in the sunshine aboard your yacht, looking up from the page to admire the view as you’re sailing towards your newest island destination – so here are a few books you may enjoy on your yacht getaway.
1.The Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante
Beginning with My Brilliant Friend, this extraordinary quartet of novels follows the lives of two girls as they enter into adulthood and make their way in life in an underprivileged neighbourhood in Naples. Covering female friendships, class conflict, protest and upheaval in the 1970s, and how the lives of women are shaped by social environments, this acclaimed series is beautifully and devastatingly human.
2. Admire the Beauty of Sappho’s Poetry on Your Yacht Getaway
A prolific poet, unfortunately we can now only appreciate the beauty within Sappho’s words from the fragments that have survived since the 6th and 7th century BC. She lived on the Greek island of Lesbos and is renowned for her lyric poetry, which focuses predominantly on love and women. Ground-breaking and hugely influential, Sappho’s words are as important today as during any other point in our history.
3. The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic
Deftly interweaving narratives from three generations of family life, The First Rule of Swimming explores the hardships and devastation felt from within war, the beauty of sisterhood, and how you can feel true love and deep affection for places as well as people, all set against a vivid canvas of life on a small Croatian island.
4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
A reimagining of Homer’s Iliad, Madeline Miller’s masterpiece follows the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as they become young men and their bond develops. When Helen is kidnapped it becomes clear Achilles must go to war in order to fulfil his destiny, and a scared Patroclus travels with him. Achingly emotional and ten years in the writing, this Women’s Prize for Fiction winner is inspired and impossible to put down.
