BOOK · 2018
Philosophy of Sailing
5,000 miles alone around the North Pacific, with the history of philosophy for a watch mate.
Williams's second sailing memoir: a 5,000-mile solo loop of the North Pacific from Marina del Rey to Hawaii aboard Thelonious II, an Ericson 38, with the subtitle Offshore in Search of the Universe meant literally - long night watches spent working through what the philosophers actually said, tested against an ocean that doesn't do theory.
Williams spent fifteen years at The Washington Post as arts editor and investigative reporter before writing television drama (Hill Street Blues, Six Feet Under), and the prose shows both careers: reported precision, dramatist's timing.
He narrates the audiobook himself, which matters - the whole book is a voice thinking out loud at sea, and it should sound like one.