Latest news with #SophieElmhirst
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Best of 2025 … so far: The savage suburbia of Helen Garner: ‘I wanted to dong Martin Amis with a bat'
Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we've chosen it. This week, from March: over 50 years, she has become one of the most revered writers in Australia. Is she finally going to get worldwide recognition? By Sophie Elmhirst. Read by Nicolette Chin
USA Today
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Be the smartest person at the dinner party: Niche nonfiction books to read
Want to be the most interesting guest at a dinner party? Be the most well-read. There are many earnest, unpretentious reasons to be a regular reader, from stepping into someone else's shoes to escaping from the stress of day-to-day life. But admit it, there's a little part of you that also wants that scholarly reputation. Why not capture the attention of your peers with a riveting celebrity backstory or share a fun fact from a new wellness book? Lately, I've been talking up Sophie Elmhirst's 'A Marriage at Sea' to anyone who will listen, wowing them with the survival story of a shipwrecked couple who spent 118 days at sea. Whether you're looking to impress your friends or want to further your quest for knowledge, here are 10 niche nonfiction books that will keep you engaged as you get smarter. 'Waste Wars' by Alexander Clapp Learn the sinister afterlife of your trash in this investigation of the global garbage trade. Clapp spent two years reporting across five continents to uncover the 'secret hot potato second life' of trash and its devastating consequences for poor nations. You won't look at your trash the same once you know about the shipping, selling and smuggling behind the scenes. 'Everything is Tuberculosis' by John Green You're about to learn more about tuberculosis than you ever thought possible. In his latest nonfiction venture, Green makes the compelling case that much of human history is shaped by this deadly disease, from poetry to poverty and colonialism. With a narrative drive through charismatic tuberculosis patient Henry, 'Everything is Tuberculosis' is a fascinating deep dive. 'You Didn't Hear This From Me' by Kelsey McKinney Gossip is far more defined in cultural tradition and currency than you realize. 'You Didn't Hear This From Me,' from the host of the 'Normal Gossip' podcast, explores our obsession with gossip and its role as lighthearted banter to social capital and what happens when it gets weaponized. 'How to Kill a City' by P.E. Moskowitz Readers who live in major cities are guaranteed to look at their metropolis differently after reading Moskowitz's expertly crafted 'How to Kill a City.' Not only will you learn about the history behind major changes in cities like New York, New Orleans, Detroit and San Francisco, but you'll also learn about who the bad actors are in city-wide gentrification and the systemic forces allowing it to happen. 'What is Queer Food?' by John Birdsall This 2025 release from culinary writer Birdsall intertwines queer identity and food culture, showing how the LGBTQ+ community has often used food as a tool for joy and community in the face of persecution. 'What is Queer Food?' follows the early days of LGBTQ+ civil rights movements to Cold War-era lesbian potlucks to the appetites of icons like James Baldwin and Truman Capote. 'Say Nothing' by Patrick Radden Keefe Now a Hulu series, Keefe maps the consequences and trials of The Troubles in Ireland through the murder and abduction of Jean McConville. 'Say Nothing' chronicles the conflict with empathy, impact and narrative flair, from Irish Republican Army member Dolours Price to peace negotiator Gerry Adams to the McConville children. 'Why We Swim' by Bonnie Tsui This book is for anyone who's a regular at their local gym pool, played mermaids as a kid is ocean-obsessed. In "Why We Swim," Tsui investigates the human behavior behind the popular sport, from pleasure laps to exercise to swimming in dangerous terrain to test our limits. 'Before We Were Trans' by Kit Heyam A historical analysis of the past, present and future of trans identities, historian Heyam paints both a narrative and educational look at the complex realities of gender expression and identity. From Renaissance Venice to Edo Japan to early America, 'Before We Were Trans' teaches eager readers about people defying gender binaries throughout history. 'The Chiffon Trenches' by André Leon Talley If you've ever wanted to be a fly on the wall in the cutthroat world of editorial fashion, "The Chiffon Trenches" is for you. This memoir from the former "Vogue" creative director will give you an intimate glimpse into fashion figureheads like Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld and Oscar de la Renta while also illuminating the industry's pervasive racism. 'The Soul of an Octopus' by Sy Montgomery I can't even count how many friends and family members I know who have read this and felt fundamentally changed. 'The Soul of an Octopus' is a 2015 deep-dive (literally) as naturalist Montgomery befriends octopuses, learning their unique personalities and cleverness. Along for the ride, you'll learn about how these intelligent creatures problem-solve and connect. Need a book that feels like a hug?: 8 comfort reads for when life gets hard Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Book review: 'A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Sophie Elmhirst's fascinating first book is "so much more than a shipwreck tale," said Laurie Hertzel in The Boston Globe. In 1973, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were sailing toward the Galápagos Islands when a sperm whale rammed their yacht and left them stranded at sea for the next 118 days on a tiny inflatable raft and 9-foot dinghy. Elmhirst has turned the British couple's tale of survival into a portrait of a marriage. "What else is a marriage," she writes, "if not being stuck on a small raft with someone and trying to survive?" In this case, Maralyn was strong-minded, Maurice ready to quit and die. In the end, though, their union, "for all its oddities," emerges as a true partnership. "As harrowing and gripping as the Baileys' story is, the real star of this book is its dazzling writer," said Chris Hewitt in The Minnesota Star Tribune. Elmhirst, a journalist, "succeeds at everything she attempts," whether waxing poetic about the open Pacific and its teeming life forms or psycho-analyzing her two lead characters. The "real meat of the book" is Elmhirst's effort to understand how the Baileys' relationship was strengthened rather than wrecked by their joint ordeal. Maurice was so misanthropic that he'd insisted on sailing the ocean without a radio, while Maralyn's adventurousness was built on an optimism that never failed her. It was Maralyn who devised most of the couple's lifesaving hacks, such as storing rainwater for drinking and catching and eating turtles. She also helped keep herself and her husband sane by fashioning a deck of playing cards from spare paper and reading aloud from a Shakespeare book they'd salvaged. "Like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, except without all the yelling and drinking, A Marriage at Sea is a clear-eyed, insightful anatomy of a marriage." "It's billed as a love story; I don't know if it is," said Dan Piepenbring in Harper's. "Whatever held the Baileys together was stranger and plainer than love, harder to come by, and even harder to explain." Elmhirst tells us that they went back to sea for 14 months on a second yacht and notes how crazy that was, but I ached to know more about what their marriage was like in subsequent years and why, like so many couples, they felt bound to experience those years together. Still, A Marriage at Sea is "an enthralling account of how the commonest hazards of married life—claustrophobia, codependence, boundarylessness—become totalized amid disaster," said Jessica Winter in The New Yorker. The book "honors the courage and resourcefulness of the Baileys in visceral detail," while showing deep compassion both for the story's heroine and her difficult mate. Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Sophie Elmhirst on the True Story of a Shipwrecked Couple
Some time ago, the British journalist Sophie Elmhirst was reporting a story about people who try to escape the land and to live on the water. 'I found myself trolling around as you do in these moments, online and on a website devoted to castaway stories and shipwreck stories,' she tells the host Gilbert Cruz on the podcast this week. 'There were lots of photographs and tales of lone wild men who were pitched up on desert islands and had various escapades. And in among all of these was a tiny little black-and-white picture of a man and a woman.' The couple were Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, a husband and wife who took to the seas from 1970s England, selling their suburban home to buy a boat and sail to New Zealand. Nine months into the trip, a sperm whale breached under their boat, leaving them stranded on a crude raft with an assortment of salvaged items, luckily including water, canned food, a camera — and a biography of King Richard III. Elmhirst tells the Baileys' story in her new book, 'A Marriage at Sea,' and in this episode of the podcast she explains what fascinated her most about their ordeal: 'I knew from the beginning that if I wanted it to be a story of the interior process of going through something like this — a sort of intimate examination of a marriage going through something like this — then I needed to really get under their skin.' We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@
New York Times
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Stranded at Sea, Would Their Marriage Survive?
A MARRIAGE AT SEA: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck, by Sophie Elmhirst Wilderness survival is tedious. Its tensions consist, in large part, of gradually lowered standards, as survivors cling as long as possible to the dignities of saying 'not yet': to killing weird animals; then killing cute ones; eating raw or rotten meat; cannibalism. A survivor's strength is twofold, lying both in acceptance of what must be done — and in a resistance to doing it. In 'A Marriage at Sea,' the journalist Sophie Elmhirst's elegant and propulsive nonfiction debut about a married couple cast adrift for months on a raft, this tension is on full display. Maurice and Maralyn Bailey took to the seas from 1970s England, selling their suburban home to buy a boat and sail to New Zealand. Nine months into the trip, a sperm whale breached under their boat — called the Auralyn, a combination of their names — and it sank into the Pacific, leaving them stranded on a crude raft with an assortment of salvaged items, luckily including water, canned food, a camera — and a biography of King Richard III. Drawing on contemporary news accounts and the couple's 1974 book '117 Days Adrift,' Elmhirst has created something of her own: a piece of lyrical narrative nonfiction that adds depth and detail to a story with imagination and respect, even while hewing to the frankly remarkable facts. Maralyn, in Elmhirst's telling, was almost unnervingly buoyant. When their raft made it into a shipping lane only for ship after ship to pass them by, she reassured herself that these particular potential rescuers weren't meant to stop. Maurice, on the other hand, comes across as a downer. One gets the impression that his negativity was always at 11 — whether on a promising first date ('everything he said was wrong') or while passing in and out of consciousness while covered in saltwater sores ('He didn't die. Failed at that, too'). He served as captain on the Auralyn, but, once marooned, promptly proposed a double suicide. Maralyn, meanwhile, made fishhooks from safety pins, harnessed wild sea turtles, and when that failed — because the turtles swam in different directions and didn't seem interested in pulling them to the Galápagos — she conceived of fashioning smoke flares from their shells. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
