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35th out of 99 books
—
74 voters
Surviving the Island of Grace: A Memoir of Alaska
by
Leslie Leyland Fields (Goodreads Author)
Reminiscent of the best of Matthiessen, Dillard, and Erlich, Leslie Leyland Fields's Alaskan memoir is an inspiring narrative of life in the wild.
Surviving the Island of Grace is a beautiful and haunting memoir of a woman who left the East Coast and moved to Alaska looking for a new life. In brilliant prose, Leslie Fields tells her story of adapting to life on a wilderness...more
Surviving the Island of Grace is a beautiful and haunting memoir of a woman who left the East Coast and moved to Alaska looking for a new life. In brilliant prose, Leslie Fields tells her story of adapting to life on a wilderness...more
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published
October 17th 2002
by St. Martin's Press
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Leslie Leyland Fields didn't know what to expect when she married a commercial salmon fisherman and moved to a remote island in the Gulf of Alaska. This book is her story. The reader is alongside Leslie as she struggles to adapt to a lifestyle that is physically and emotionally demanding, lived out on a remote Alaskan island with no running water, electricity, or contact with the outside world.
She writes honestly of her struggles to live in this harsh environment while trying to build a marriag...more
She writes honestly of her struggles to live in this harsh environment while trying to build a marriag...more
I struggled with this book and I'm not sure why. It's exactly the type of story I love, a strong independent woman making a life in Alaska while still travelling and having a career and creative pursuits. But often I found sections of the book boring and the descriptions trite, a little too forced. Her faith was obviously a key part of her experiences, but it felt as if she wasn't writing honestly about how she came to her faith, just squeezing in scriptures and moments of being grateful to god....more
Overall, I really liked this. I enjoyed the window into such a unique life, I appreciated the author's honesty with her struggles. I would have enjoyed it more if it had been better edited, I found the jumps back and forth in time and the abrupt transitions distracting. I think the writing could have been more personal, in spite of the honesty there was paradoxically a detachment, she reported hard facts but didn't do a great job evoking the emotion behind them. But still, I found her life inspi...more
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I really enjoyed the way this book was written. The author was able to weave her faith and trust into the story of her very difficult life; first as part of an extremely dysfunctional family in the eastern US and then her marriage as a 20-year-old and moving to a remote island in the Gulf of Alaska where her husband & his family were fishermen. I particularly liked the author's honesty and the fact that she didn't pretend that her faith and trust were always present! But ultimately she was g...more
Very much enjoyed this book - about a woman "living deliberately" on an island off Kodiak island with her husband and them making their living fishing.
Read it on a cold stormy night with a hot drink and be grateful!
Read it on a cold stormy night with a hot drink and be grateful!
This is the story of one woman's life journey. I enjoyed it in some places and in others, I was bored. Even though she won the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing, I felt this story was written in diary fashion. (Today we did such and such.) The author shows very little emotion and writes as if this were the story of someone other than herself. It has potential-set in the Alaskan bush,surrounded by water and unbelievable raw weather she describes the life of a fisherman during the...more
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Brilliant writing and fascinating account of life on Harvester Island, Alaska. I am following Leslie's blog and Facebook account to keep up with her now that I'm done reading. Simply fascinated by this life so different than my own!
Wonderful memoir! Makes me appreciate the skill of fishermen and the challenges of living on an island in Alaska. I will never complain about doing laundry again!!
interesting woman's perspective.
Simply wonderful. I'm so excited for this summer.
A woman's memoir of Salmon fishing in Alaska and the struggles maintaining a healthy marriage, being a good mother, and just plain survival. A phenomenal read.
Not the greatest writing or editing, but I was fascinated by the story.
I really liked this book. I grew up in Kodiak, Alaska and I knew about the place she spoke of and recognized alot of the names. It was a compelling story and as the daughter of a former fisherman it is one I continue to re-read. Leslie is an amazing woman, and an inspiration.
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When you see her, Leslie may be wearing a silk dress and fishnets or wearing Xtra-Tuff boots and mending fishing nets, depending on whether she’s at her fishcamp in the Alaska wilderness or on a speaking tour “Outside.” She’s happy in both places talking about the books, places and topics that move her most.
Her book list includes The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God (...more
More about Leslie Leyland Fields...
Her book list includes The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God (...more
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