|
|
Hill, Peter ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
|
|
|
|
1 |
Hill, Peter Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper
Canongate U.S. 2005 1841956511 / 9781841956510 Paperback Near fine n/a Paperback
New. Remainder mark, else fine in publisher's decorated wrappers. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.In 1973, Glasgow-born Hill impulsively dropped out of art school to train as a lighthouse keeper at a series of remote outposts off Scotland's coast. He was, he recalls, the very image of the teenage baby boomer: longhaired, scruffy, dragging his rock 'n' roll tapes around everywhere. Yet he appears to have enjoyed himself immensely, spending weeks in close quarters with a handful of much older men, listening to their anecdotes and learning how to cook huge meals. The biggest problem with this loose, digressive account is that that's pretty much all they did other than keep the lights on. There are some amusing scenesâ€"one lighthouse crew's obsession with the televised Watergate hearings; a game of Scrabble in which only nautical terms are allowedâ€"but the pace is otherwise slow moving. While that sometimes makes for remarkable character studies, the narrative is burdened by Hill's grandiose faith in the significance of his generational moment. As a result, the memoir reads more like an elegy for his lost youth than one for the lighthouse keepers who would soon be replaced by automated technology. Furthermore, American readers will struggle to make sense of the references to 1970s BBC programming, which serve as hooks to describe nearly everyone Hill meets (the book was published in the U.K. last year). At least it's easy to grasp the Scots dialect; the gruff men who speak it hold much of the tale's vitality. In contrast, Hill's more direct efforts to wax charmingly nostalgic sound too often merely pretentious, like the sort of pompous middle-aged prattle Hill would have fled from if he were still 19. Copyright ¬ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From The New Yorker In 1973, Hill, a hippie art student from Glasgow, anticipated that his stint as a summer lighthouse-keeper off the west coast of Scotland would be a time for writing haiku and painting seascapes. Real duty, he learned, is more like living inside a working clock--keeping watch by a relentless schedule, with sleep parcelled into shifts of a few hours and conversations carried on in fifteen-second intervals between foghorn blasts. His narrative gives voice to the old-salt Scotsmen who tend the lights, as they recount murderous legends or boil over while watching the Watergate hearings. Hill's final posting proves the most daunting--a lighthouse on a narrow strip of lava in the Outer Hebrides that is reachable only by helicopter. High seas sometimes submerge the entire island, and Hill's last night there is complicated by the arrival of half a million migrating birds, illuminated by the beacon and pecking at the windows. Copyright ¬ 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Price:
5.35 GBP
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hill, Peter on Adelaidebooksellers.com.au
Hill, Peter on Archaeologyplus.co.uk
Hill, Peter on Bestpricedbooks.net
Hill, Peter on Boneybooks.com
Hill, Peter on Booksagain.net
Hill, Peter on Booksliquidation.com
Hill, Peter on C-books.co.uk
Hill, Peter on Chapter1.co.za
Hill, Peter on Christianbooksaustralia.com
Hill, Peter on Cotswoldinternetbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Dbworldwidebooks.com
Hill, Peter on Diversitybooks.com.au
| Hill, Peter on Dustwrappers.com
Hill, Peter on Dworskibooks.com
Hill, Peter on Easychairbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Goddingsltd.co.uk
Hill, Peter on Goodwillbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Lairdbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Leurabooks.com.au
Hill, Peter on Manorfarmbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Manyhills.com
Hill, Peter on Mccauleybooks.com
Hill, Peter on Montrosehouse.com.au
Hill, Peter on Mrmlonline.com
| Hill, Peter on Pomfretstreetbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Robinsonstreetbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Sanctumbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Seaoceanbooks.com
Hill, Peter on Serendipitybooks.com.au
Hill, Peter on Stillwaterbooks.co.uk
Hill, Peter on Thebearbookcompany.com
Hill, Peter on Thebookhound.net
Hill, Peter on Waywardbooksonline.com
|
|
|
