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A review by twicomb
A Brief Atlas of the Lighthouses at the End of the World by González Macías
adventurous
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
Scientific fact: everyone loves lighthouses.
Scientific fact: everyone has as some point secretly wanted to live in a lighthouse (or at least been curious what it would be like).
Scientific fact: this book will make you love lighthouses even more. But you may no longer want to live in one.
A heartfelt look at lighthouses all around the globe, from Siberia to New Zealand and many points in between (some you've likely never heard of). For each lighthouse, the author provides a page of interesting highlights in its history, then a full-page image, and then a line drawing of its external appearance with additional structural facts. There's much to uncover in here. I had no idea how difficult it was to build a lighthouse in many of the locations that are chosen, nor how difficult it often is to get to (and back from) the lighthouse from the boat that is dropping you off or picking you up. There are several stories of lighthouse keepers who went mad or perished...or even disappeared, but there are also many stories of keepers who excelled at the job and stayed for decades, sometimes their entire career. At least two of the stories are about girls who were raised as the daughter of a lighthouse keeper and who then went on to be the keeper of that same lighthouse in their adult years, which got me thinking about how natural it would be to want to stay if that was what you had always known. What an interesting life that must have been, to be more comfortable and at home there than anywhere else.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this eARC for unbiased review.
Scientific fact: everyone has as some point secretly wanted to live in a lighthouse (or at least been curious what it would be like).
Scientific fact: this book will make you love lighthouses even more. But you may no longer want to live in one.
A heartfelt look at lighthouses all around the globe, from Siberia to New Zealand and many points in between (some you've likely never heard of). For each lighthouse, the author provides a page of interesting highlights in its history, then a full-page image, and then a line drawing of its external appearance with additional structural facts. There's much to uncover in here. I had no idea how difficult it was to build a lighthouse in many of the locations that are chosen, nor how difficult it often is to get to (and back from) the lighthouse from the boat that is dropping you off or picking you up. There are several stories of lighthouse keepers who went mad or perished...or even disappeared, but there are also many stories of keepers who excelled at the job and stayed for decades, sometimes their entire career. At least two of the stories are about girls who were raised as the daughter of a lighthouse keeper and who then went on to be the keeper of that same lighthouse in their adult years, which got me thinking about how natural it would be to want to stay if that was what you had always known. What an interesting life that must have been, to be more comfortable and at home there than anywhere else.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this eARC for unbiased review.