While the world tilts and shrinks, our contact with the real things of this world, like wood and metal, like the wind and wave, get to be less and less. Daniel Robb doesn't want to lose touch with those things, so he provides readers with this excellent and thoughtful book. Part carpenter's manual, part memoir, part philosophical treatise, Sloop is thought provoking and tremendously readable.

Daniel points out that the sloop in question, a Hereschoff 12 1/2, was a product of a transitional age - as the world was moving from natural to manufactured propulsion. Our own age is similarly transitional, and this is his starting off point for a number of meditations on the durability of man-made goods, and the old fashioned values of craftsmanship. He contrasts these with the challenge of the modern - when is "good enough" good enough?

Maybe because we share a few childhood memories, a first name, or maybe because we're both human - Daniel's detailing of the honest hesitation he experienced in what might otherwise be a straightforward restoration carpentry project spoke to my own experience - not of boatbuilding, but of life.

The only thing bad one can say about Daniel's memoir of boat building in Woods Hole is that he changes the names of most of the other people he meets and works with. Which, for a small town memoir, is probably a good thing, but for a reader intimately interested in said small town, well, one can't help but wonder who's who.

This book was a gift and I could not put it down. Through a narrative the author draws into question our modern frentic lifestyle and finds folks who are able to find fulfillment doing what they love. The boat would seem to be the focus of the book, but the value is in the relationships with the other characters. I loved the soul searching when faced with the decision to restore the boat to museum quality versus making it functional again. An easy read, this is the first book I've read to completion in a long time.