Mind-blowing lines #27

Bright and Distant Shores is an irresistible title, don't you think? Dominic Smith is an American, and this is not his first novel—information which I trust will pique your interest.

I admit it's a bit of a tome (700 pages) but it's one hell of an easy read—compelling, involving, likeable, dramatic, and, best of all, vivid. Over these last months of frigid winter, grey air and sickness, this book has been something of a holiday, a retreat. Why? Let me show you.

Introspection was unavoidable at sea. The immense sightlines had a way of turning a man inwards. Up in the rigging, Owen watched a progression of coral atolls and saw his life in outline, a lineage of bare rocks that stood for future events—marriage, children, even his own death could be reckoned in the crags that dotted then diminished above the ocean. He saw the other men in the cross-trees, each of them sunk in his own reverie between tacks. Somehow, the sea offered a reprieve from the turning wheel. He could see the workings of his life more clearly, felt a fondness for it that he seldom felt ashore. Time slowed and the days were graspable things, bright objects waiting to be taken up.