Tag: reading

So, what’s the excuse?

What have we been doing in the month since we returned from Africa and the glorious Cape Verde Islands, besides trying to set up Mailer-lite?

10. We had all the pressure water lines replaced in our house, which entailed living with plumbers and erratic water supplies for almost a week. 

9. I’ve been making crazy videos on TikTok using Canva, iMovie, and TikTok’s own program in hopes of selling more books. The ones I spend the most time on and think are the best get the fewest views. Take a look and vote (click on the heart) for the ones you like best. Look for Linnea448.  Keep your eyes averted when you encounter some of the other stuff (not in my account!). It’s a wild world out there.

8. Book sales have been falling over the past month. Maybe time to try something new – like writing a newsletter?

7. Kent has been writing more stuff to add to a sequel to We Ran Away to Sea,

6. I finally set up my new Epson 8550 printer that arrived in December. It prints beautifully, although I’ve just begun to explore what it can do, including printing photos on larger paper. Oops. I haven’t ordered the larger paper yet.

5. Partly to make my workspace work better with the new printer, Kent and I spent a morning moving furniture around. I just took a couple of pictures, but it still looks depressingly messy. Maybe next time?

4. I made a New Year’s resolution to clean up the piles of folders and who knows what else that have been stacked in my office on the beautiful big coffee table that Kent built long ago. You can now see the top, although it is still not perfectly clear. A friend and I agreed to share our progress on organizing. Hey, Dana, how is it going for you? A picture next time? Maybe that will motivate me to finish the job AND keep it neater from now on. Maybe I can invite all of you to come for tea?

3. I upgraded my wonderful Sony A6000 camera to the A6700. Figuring that out has taken a few hours, and I’m not done yet.

2. I’ve been submitting photos to exhibitions, near and far. One picture was accepted, and I sold two prints in December, so that has been motivating.

Morning on Golden Gate Pond

1. I’m revising two picture book stories and have continued writing. I’m congratulating myself that I managed to sort through all those folders without getting too distracted.

AM I ALLOWED A MINUS ONE? After two years in a repair shop, I stopped by one day (amazed to find it open after years of unanswered phone calls!) and reclaimed my old Bose radio, still without the CD player, but now I get to listen to classical music on KHFM while I work. It keeps me going in a happier frame of mind.

The Wanderer by Sharon Creech

            Of course, there’s been much more besides… but this is already too long. I can see I have to write more often. I’m listening to Sharon Creech’s The Wanderer. How did I miss this before? It is a great story of life on a sailboat from a teenager’s perspective (actually two teenagers’ perspectives, so it is two voices, just like We Ran Away to Sea. What a great writer Creech is! Sadly, the book is available from the library only as an audiobook. I’ve ordered a print copy so I can enjoy it that way, too.

On São Vicente, Cape Verde (the sands were blown from the Sahara Desert, almost 2000 miles)!

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!   We are looking forward to a visit from Andy (yes, the Andy who was a little kid and a young man in We Ran Away to Sea.

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G00d Reads:

Kent on Patrick O’Brian

A few days ago, I stuck my nose in our Little Library and discovered a collection of 10 Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels. I hadn’t read any of these books since leaving Coot twenty-five years ago. The three or four books I read in the 1980s and 90s were acquired haphazardly in trades with other boaters and read without order or coherence. I set the stack of books beside my chair, took a look at the top one, started reading, and finished it the next morning. I arranged the books in order, starting with Master and Commander, and I am now on the fifth one.

I delight in the sailing descriptions. O’Brian manages to bring the life and times of the British Navy in the 18th century to life better than any other author I know. I just finished reading his account of a stormy crossing of Biscay Bay in Desolation Island, and it rang true to my own 1984 experience of that body of water. Despite the difference between a 74-gun ship of the line and a 38-foot ketch, extensive repairs were required in both cases.

More from Jim Sollars

Like Kent, Jim is from Sheridan, Wyoming, and became a sailor and a writer. Unlike Kent, Jim is prolific, with books published on Amazon in both October and November this year. Here is his latest thriller:

Friends from the Past

We are following the adventures of Ned and Kate Phillips on Instagram, the same Ned and Kate Pam and Kent met more than thirty years ago in the Chesapeake (October 1994). (See Chapter 11, Going South, pp. 109-11.)  They are now sailing from England to the Cape Verde Islands and beyond. Coincidently, if all goes to plan, Kent and Linnea will arrive via the ninety-eight-passenger Corinthian at Santiago Island in the Cape Verde Islands on Christmas morning (one month from today), but we will almost certainly miss Ned and Kate.

Kate at the Helm

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

 “Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

—E.B. White, author

Reflection, Tingley Pond, Albuquerque Bosque, November 24, 2025

See also, Linnea’s Blog https://www.caminobleu.com (coming soon) for more on the writing inspired by Evelyn Begody’s new memoir: Facing East: Boarding School & Beyond. Her account of her early education may also inspire you to reflect on yours.

New Year Awakenings!

January 15, 2025

All those New Year resolutions and good intentions! 

Walks: We led members of the Albuquerque Chapter of American Pilgrims on the Camino on a trek along the Rio Grande Bosque on New Year’s Day.

Reading: First, not exactly reading, we indulged in Netflix’s gripping One Hundred Years of Solitude, based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel.

Our reading has included books by three New Mexico authors, starting with Hampton Sides’ fascinating and much honored The Wide Wide Sea centered on the third and final journey of Captain Cook. I am impressed with the way Sides holds the readers’ interest by telling a complex story through short passages and vignettes without overwhelming us with his research.

We’ve also read Rebecca Reynolds’s Thresholds of Change, which we will share with our little EAR (Elder Activist Readers) book group, and we have enjoyed our friend Rosalie Rayburn’s third book in her Digger Doyle Mystery series: Windswept, set in beautifully depicted New Mexico landscapes.

Writing:  Kent is writing and expanding on more stories, some left out of We Ran Away to Sea, and some new ones. Here is the beginning of one:
A Shortcut and a Close Shave

Shortcuts can save time and effort, but sometimes there are unexpected complications.

Sailing to the Atlantic side of Florida from Ft. Myers on the Gulf Coast requires a long trip, but…

Read more …

Book News

Shortly after we learned that We Ran Away to Sea  was a finalist for the Global Book Awards, we received notification that the book had won a Silver Medal in the category of Biography/Memoir.  There are still more award announcements awaiting in the next few months. I expressed my reservations about awards, still it is nice to be noticed and to learn that someone (beisdes our friends and family) thinks highly of the book.

See Kent in a short video:  Are Book Awards Scams?

Please check out our blog jacanapress.com for more stories and updates.  

Book Signings, Readings, and Reviews

Kent reading We Ran Away to Sea

Kent reading in downtown Albuquerque

Join us at Treasure House Books and Gifts in Old Town this Sunday, September 10, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. for a book talk, reading, and conversation. Come and go as you please since the space is small. Books will be available for sale.

We hope to have future events for those who cannot make this one.

In the News!

We were happy to see David Steinberg’s “Book of the Week” article based on his thoughtful reading of We Ran Away to Sea and several phone conversations over the past couple of weeks. We were pleasantly surprised to be chosen as the Book of the Week, given the presence of several much-published and well-known authors at events this week. The link to the Albuquerque Journal article is below.

Setting Sail: Memoir offers an intimate look at one couple’s life on the seas

Report on the Travel Bug Presentation on August 26

Unfortunately, we forgot to ask someone to take pictures of the talk and reading at the Travel Bug in Santa Fe last week that was attended by twenty enthusiastic people. The presentation shared by Kent and Linnea was accompanied by a slide show with a few special effects. We won’t be able to show the slides this week, but we hope to find another venue where we can repeat this performance.

Thanks for Your Support

We appreciate all of your support for this project that, like the Covid pandemic that accompanied it, often seemed to have no end. Please think about writing a few words on Amazon about your response to the book. Ask about the book at your local bookstores, and tell your friends about the book.

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