Paul Heiney, The Last Man Across the Atlantic ***

This memoir describes the journey of an amateur sailor in his fifties who enters the OSTAR Single-handed race across the Atlantic. He is a cruising sailor, in it for the test of his seamanship and mettle not to compete in the race. The book focuses far less on the sailing technique than on the mundane aspects of the arduous passage: making lunch, going to the bathroom, tracking the (lack of) progress, staving off loneliness, and fighting the urge to return to cozy home ports rather than brave the wide Atlantic. This focus is all to the book's credit, because it makes Paul seem more accessible as an everyman and makes his achievement seem more possible for anyone who feels the need to try it.