Books

Two Years before the Mast

Harvard kid ships out with a merchant and learns the ropes. He goes to San Francisco, then a settlement of a few adobe structures, to trade.

I am grateful to @links for putting this gem on my radar. It’s exactly on point for me:

- erudite narrator
- sea adventure 
- accounts of places I know in times I don’t 

The book assumes that its reader is intelligent and patient, and gives a corresponding level of detail, but never enough to exhaust the reader. 

This book clearly inspired Moby Dick, Captains Courageous, the Aubrey Maturin series, and others. You can smell the brine on it. 

But it’s not all nautical. The middle section introduces the reader to the California coast back when SF, LA, and SD all had populations well below 1000. Their main export in those days was cowhide, and we learn the travails of buying, processing, and transporting them. 

It’s also packed with great characters and fun tangential anecdotes. 

Five stars, banger.