Could not put this book down!

books:


	• Coming Back Alive: The True Story of the Most Harrowing Search and Rescue Mission Ever Attempted on Alaska's ... Spike Walker St. Martin's Griffin, 2002 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 30 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Coming Back Alive

Excellent book. Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Very well written.A good look over the shoulder of the Coast Guard and at the life saving service they provide.

Couldn't put it down!

I know Spike and this is the first book of his I have read. I started reading this at night on my graveyard shift job and couldn't put it down. I spent the winter of 1979-80 in Unalaska working as an engineer at Pan-Alaska Seafood's crab plant and know what Alaska weather is like. I've seen king crab boats with 3" of ice on a 3/4" cable, and the rigging and railings full of ice. I'm from Astoria, Oregon and know lots of fishermen who fish Alaska. I can't imagine anyone having a hard time believing this. Spike nailed it, I felt as though I was in the H-60 with the crews. Its hard to imagine waves of the size described, but I know they do happen in big storms. This book gives an accurate description of the Coast Guard and the kind of weather they go out in to help those in need. I can't comprehend people who tear apart a writer for too many adverbs, writing style, etc. This is a helluva book, Spike is a great writer who does his research well and I would recommend this book to anyone who likes factual adventure stories.

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Walker - the fisherman

I have read some reviews that have been placed on this book and I understand where everyone is coming from. Spike may seem to throw a lot of words in there to describe something and the writing might not be absoluately fluid and pleasing. BUT...Spike Walker is a fisherman first, a book writer second. I saw him on Deadliest Catch where he sat with all the crab boat captains in Dutch Harbor. He writes about this stuff because he lived that life. He might not be able to write a book like The Perfect Storm, but he has been in the middle of the Bering Sea in the most unbelievable weather you can imagine. So while Junger was able to write an amazing and almost "perfect" book, Walker makes up for it in living the life of a crab boat fisherman, knowing those who have been lost at sea, tasting the Bering Sea as he pulled crab pots on deck, and living to tell about it. I anticipate everything he writes because he lived it. He did not simply research and write about it.

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Coming Back Alive

An excellent read for any offshore fisherman anywhere- recreational or commercial. Author also blends beautiful descriptions of Alaska along with the suspense of the rescues. A great testimonial to the hard work and sacrifices made by our USCG.

Could not put this book down!

This is one of the most mesmerizing books I've read, and definitely one of Spike Walker's best. You will not believe what the fishermen and Coast Guard rescuers go through... tossed about in 50-70 foot seas in leaky survivial suits in 38 degree water in the middle of the night for hours on end. The human will to survive, and the human will to succeed will never be better captured by a more riveting account. Spike Walker's writing captures the right level of detail and he artfully weaves together human emotion and extreme adventure.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

When the fishing vessel La Conte sinks suddenly at night in one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and record ninety-foot seas during a savage storm in January 1998, her five crewmen are left to drift without a life raft in the freezing Alaskan waters and survive as best they can.

One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission. As the crew of the La Conte begin to die one by one, those sworn to watch over them risk everything to pull off the rescue of the century.

Spike Walker's memoir of his years as a deckhand in Alaska, Working on the Edge, was hailed by James A. Michner as "masterful . . . will become the definitive account of this perilous trade, an addition to the literature of the sea." In Coming Back Alive, Walker has crafted his most devastating book to date. Meticulously researched through hundreds of hours of taped interviews with the survivors, this is the true account of the La Conte's final voyage and the relationship between Alaskan fishermen and the search and rescue crews who risk their lives to save them.

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