The Navigator
by Morris West · first published 1602
100% recommend
Gunnar Thorkild, grandson of the last great Polynesian navigator, has rashly proclaimed, in a scientific paper, the existence of a legendary island to which all navigators go on the eve of their death. With his future at the Hawaii Institute on the line, he embarks on an epic voyage of discovery.
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The Navigator - by Morris West. Not new. Has a good story along with a few implied lessons about handling yourself and others. Set in the context of a sea voyage from Hawaii, to find a remote, uncharted island where…
on “The Best Books I Read in 2013” ↗Fiction: Taipan, by James Clavell The Navigator, by Morris West Non-fiction: The Upanishads (not a single book, but a bunch of them) The Bhagavad Gita
on “Ask HN: What are the best books you've ever read?” ↗…National Geographic magazine had an article or a series on it several years ago, and IIRC, they sent a team out to the Pacific area to research this stuff some, and to interview such living Polynesian navigators. I had read the article/series. The Morris West book "The Navigator" is also interesting in this connection (though there is only a bit of discussion of the navigation topic in the book, it is not the…
on “Most archaeologists think the first Americans arrived by boat” ↗The Morris West [1] book, The Navigator, is an interesting read in this connection. A mixed group of people, headed by a charismatic and larger-than-life Prof., Gunnar Thorkild, of mixed ancestry (white + Polynesian), set out in a ship from…
on “Like startups, most intentional communities fail. Why?” ↗The Morris West "The Navigator" is a really good read related to this topic (IMO). It's fiction, but I think some of the stuf mentioned is based on facts about the navigation skills the Polynesians had. A National Geographic team had…
on “Neandertals, Stone Age people may have voyaged the Mediterranean” ↗>the sailors of the windward Solomon islands as their sailing instructions That bit reminded me of a great book, Morris West's The Navigator. It's both a good adventure story (Robinson Crusoe style, but with a motley crowd) and probably a parable or lessons for people.
on ““A pattern language” explained (2016)” ↗