The brilliant sequel to Gore Vidal's acclaimed, bestselling memoir, Palimpsest.In Point to Point Navigation, the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic, and controversialist Gore Vidal ranges freely over his remarkable life with the signature wit and literary elegance that is uniquely his. The title refers to a form of navigation he resorted to as a first mate in the Navy during World War II. As he says, "As I was writing this account of my life and times since Palimpsest, I felt as if I were again dealing with those capes and rocks in the Bering Sea that we had to navigate so often with a compass made inoperable by weather." It is a beautifully apt analogy for the hazards (mostly) eluded during his eventful life and for the way this memoir proceeds--far from linear but always on course.From his desks in Ravello and the Hollywood Hills, Gore Vidal travels in memory through the arenas of literature, television, film, theater, politics and international society where he has cut a broad swath, recounting achievements and defeats, friends and enemies made (and on a number of occasions lost). Among the gathering of notables to be found in these pages, sketched with a draftsman's ease and evoked with the panache of one of our great raconteurs, are Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy, Tennessee Williams (the "Glorious Bird"), Eleanor Roosevelt, Orson Welles, Johnny Carson, Greta Garbo, Federico Fellini, Rudolph Nureyev, Elia Kazan, and Francis Ford Coppola. Some of the book's most moving pages are devoted to the illness and death of his partner of five decades, Howard Austen, and indeed the book is, among other things, a meditation on mortality written in the spirit of Montaigne.Elegiac yet vital and even ornery, Point to Point Navigation is a summing-up of Gore Vidal's time on the planet that manages to be at once supremely entertaining, endlessly provocative, and thoroughly moving.From the Hardcover edition.

Reviews

(Log in or Create an Account first!)

Details

Bookseller: Better World Books Ltd (GB)
Bookseller's Inventory #: 37473194-20
Title: Point to Point Navigation
Author: Vidal, Gore
Book Condition: Used - Good
Quantity Available: 1
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0316027278
ISBN 13: 9780316027274
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
Place of Publication: London
This edition first published: June 3, 2008

Terms of Sale

Better World Books Ltd

30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping cost for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged. Please keep in mind that because we deal mostly in used books, any extra components, such as CDs or access codes, are usually not included. CDs: If the book does include a CD, it will be noted in the book's description ("With CD!"). Otherwise, there is no CD included, even if the term is used in the book's title. Access Codes: Unless the book is described as "New," please assume that the book does *not* have an access code.

About the Seller

Better World Books Ltd

This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

Biblio member since 2009

Dunfermline, Fife

Ask Seller a Question

About Better World Books Ltd

Better World Books generates funding for literacy charities through the sales of second-hand books. Our current partner charities in the UK are READ International, the National Literacy Trust, Room to Read. (Registered Charities no. 1128534, no. 1116260 and no. 1125803 and the National Adult Literacy Agency. Much of our stock is ex-library due to our close relationships with UK libraries. We offer a service that helps them keep their unwanted books out of landfill. All ex-library books will be marked as such in their individual listings. 99% of orders are dispatched within 24 hours and we offer a 100% money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.