Negotiations and Trades

When we're not cleaning, cooking, repairing, snorkeling, maintaining, writing or dinghy-ing about, we are most likely reading. It is one of the real pleasures of cruising. You start with a good collection of books on board and after they are read, they are traded to other boaters. You urge your guests on board to bring some new books that they'll leave behind - refreshing the cruising community's supply of new material. Last night, during a dinghy raft-up / drift, sunset viewing, adult beverage event in the "swimming pool", there were big negotiations on book trades. We were the "fresh meat" having come from Honduras and Providencia. We also had some different books.

The most common genre out here is the murder/mystery/investigation/thriller best sellers by folks like Grisham, Baldacci, Ludlum, Cornwell, Woods, etc. You have to try to remember if you already read it at these trades. We stamp all the books we read with an "Astarte" stamp in the front - that way we can take a quick look if we actually read that "particular" book (not necessary that book because obviously several of the same book float around the community). Then there are the ones that you pick up in a trade that you wouldn't have bought in a bookstore but end up being favored reads. We both loved "Blue Latitudes" by Horowitz - the retracing of a Cook exploration; Bob in the Baltic - a funny travel read by a British comedian and others. We've recently read TC Boyle's "The Women" about Andrew Lloyd Wright's ladies and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night" (think that's the title - traded it last night - it was a hot item!). We also both loved the Stieg Larsson (sp?) series "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Girl Who Played with Fire." (Barbara almost jumped a woman for the second book at a potluck when she brought it to trade!)

We also have enjoyed some of our favorite "crazy" authors Tim Dorsey, Tom Robbins, Carl Haisson and Elmore Leonard and discovered some new ones like Christopher Moore and Brian Callison. There are also the genres of biographies, histories, and classics in the mix. We've enjoyed lots of these as well. We avoid the romance novels - not our thing.

We have a collection of books on board and we also have the Amazon e-reader Kindle. The nice thing about the e-reader is it carries so many books - the bad thing is you pick them and you lose out on those trade opportunities. Another good thing is that whenever we're nears internet, Michael goes to the Gutenberg project and downloads lots of "free" books - classics and out of copyright material. The free part is good and it also means getting some great books that we've never read. Many have been great gets.

The Patrick O'Brian series of old sailing adventures (Master and Commander is the best known) is one Michael also enjoys and he's making it through the series. Whenever we have a guest or go back to the states, we buy a few more from the series. He'll be done with the entire series soon. Barbara will tackle them at some point.

We've discovered new authors and learned many new things as we explore the books gotten, traded or bought. If anyone has good book recommendations, we'd love to hear about them. We'll only be able to afford and/or carry so many back when we get to the states for a visit. And, there isn't a book store on every corner in Kuna Yala! But, we can always be on the lookout for them at an upcoming book trade.

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