Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human
Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human
Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human
Audiobook7 hours

Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human

Written by George Michelsen Foy

Narrated by Tom Zingarelli

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

()

About this audiobook

In 1844, George Michelsen Foy's great-great grandfather, captain of a Norwegian cargo ship, perished at sea after getting lost in a snowstorm. Foy decides to unravel the mystery surrounding Halvor Michelsen's death-and the roots of his own obsession with navigation-by re-creating his ancestor's trip using only period instruments.

Beforehand, he meets a colorful cast of characters to learn whether men really have better directional skills than women; how cells, eels, and spaceships navigate; and how tragedy results from GPS glitches. He interviews a cabby who has memorized every street in London, sails on a Haitian cargo sloop, and visits the site of a secret navigational cult in Greece.

At the heart of Foy's story is this fact: navigation and the brain's memory centers are inextricably linked. As Foy unravels the secret behind Halvor's death, he also discovers why forsaking our navigation skills in favor of GPS may lead not only to Alzheimer's and other diseases of memory, but to losing a key part of what makes us human.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 10, 2016
ISBN9781515970163
Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human
Author

George Michelsen Foy

George Michelsen Foy is the author of Run the Storm, Finding North: How Navigation Makes Us Human and Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence, as well as twelve critically acclaimed novels. He was a recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship in fiction and his articles, reviews, and stories have been published by Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Harper's, The New York Times, and Men's Journal, among others. A former officer on British coastal freighters, he teaches creative writing at NYU, holds a US Coast Guard coastal captain’s license, and divides his time between Cape Cod and New York.

Related to Finding North

Related audiobooks

Technology & Engineering For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Finding North

Rating: 2.999999975 out of 5 stars
3/5

4 ratings1 review

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Author's narcissism gets a bit tiresome.