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Booking Through Thursday: Niche

14 June 2009 by Melissa

On Thursday, June 11th, Booking through Thursday asked:

There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.

What niche books do YOU read?

I don’t think I read any niches that no one else reads. One niche I do have, however, is that I love boat stories.

I’m not referring to Horatio Hornblower adventures, or pirate-themed bodice rippers, but books like Tania Aebi’s Maiden Voyage which I first encountered soon after its release in 1989, and which tells the story of the then-eighteen-year-old author’s solo circumnavigation of the world via sailboat.

Linda Greenlaw’s books are not all boat stories, but even those that take place entirely on dry land have the same sort of feeling as those which recount her oceanic adventures.

I’m not sure why I like these tales – maybe it’s because the ocean pulses in my blood even when I’m as far inland as possible – but I love having a free block of time to spend on the high seas, even if it is only vicariously.

Related

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We fill our homes with candles that represent nothing more than a cozy glow, and we gather ’round our gas logs or Franklin stoves even when our houses are fitted with central heating systems, because there’s something – some magical thing – about fire that seems to drive away the stress and darkness of winter in a way that electric light never can.

The Gift of the Mergi

A handful of pearls. That was all Nerissa had. Oh, she’d grown up in Poseidon’s Grotto, with abalone combs and aquamarine and moonstone gems, but when she’d left the great ocean to marry a land-walker, she’d forfeit her jewels and pirate’s treasure hoards and kept only the handful of her nameday pearls.

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And on solstice mornings, with landwalker-entrancing song and candy darters, they would send me out to play and I would glide through the swaying kelp searching for news of the Seven Seas,

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TBM-2412.19 – Dogfish Days of Advent – We Mermen of Ocean Are

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And yet, these winter holidays all have something in common as well – aside from the tendency to celebrate with incredibly delicious, albeit unhealthy foods. They all bring light to the longest nights of the year.