Travels with Puff: A Gentle Game of Life and Death

by Richard Bach, Dan Nickens (Photographer)

Overview

"A few years ago, someone asked me by way of their T-shirt, "Got Freedom?" Here's, a bit delayed and by way of two small seaplanes and a continent ten thousand horizons wide, my answer"—Richard Bach

In the tradition of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, and Richard Bach's own bestseller, Illusions, TRAVELS WITH PUFF recounts Bach's journey from Florida to Washington state in his small seaplane. With humor, wisdom and insight that could only come from one of the world's most beloved authors and an accomplished pilot, TRAVELS WITH PUFF also challenges our ideas of fate and our futures, and asks us how can we prepare for the emergencies in our own lives? Can we ever really be safe? And, is being safe always what we want?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937777036
Publisher:	NiceTiger
Publication date:	03/19/2013
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

In Case You Wont Believe This vii

1 The Encounter 1

2 The Advertisement 3

3 From Frail Thought into The World of Appearances 5

4 The Curve of Learning 7

5 Alone At Last 11

6 On the Fourth Day, She Rested 17

7 Ev-ry-one Knows It's Win-dy 21

8 Is There Such a Thing as Bad News? 27

9 Learning Secrets 37

10 Rough Water, Triple Ties and Storms Which May Never Be 41

11 A Different Family 45

12 A Tour for Puff 47

13 A Tour for Puff, Part II 51

14 Tomorrow Today 55

15 Otra Vez, el Capitan Polio 61

16 Flying Again! 65

17 "Routine Flight" 67

18 Sebring Encore 69

19 Technical Matters 71

20 Powers of Truth 73

21 Sand and Sea and Sky 75

22 Puff and the President 79

23 I Laugh at Thunderstorms 81

24 The Best Laid Schemes of Mice 87

25 Way Quiet Today 93

26 The Day After 95

27 A Day for Soaring 99

28 Meeting Grandma Cat 101

29 First Day, and a Splash-In 103

30 Standing By for Sunrise 107

31 Best Day Flying, Ever? 111

32 Storms and Sharks, a Tale Along Our Journey 119

33 Quiet Day in Louisiana 129

34 Major Cool Day 131

35 Fears, and Flying Anyway 139

36 Morning Comes 143

37 Someone to Watch Over Me 149

38 Decisions 153

39 Maintenance Day and a Surprise Visit 157

40 Swords in the Water, and Subjective Flying 159

41 Practical Precognition 165

42 Exploring Big Water 173

43 Exploring Big Sand 179

44 Takeoff, and Freedom Found 189

45 Only a Hundred Miles, and What an Only 197

46 Sayin' and Doin' 201

47 Coasting 207

48 Repair It, or Fly On? 213

49 Unknowns, and the Confident 219

Editorial Reviews

Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) expresses the joy, the fear, and the feeling of freedom that he experiences when flying his amphibian seaplane, Puff. A longtime pilot, Bach must train with his new plane before embarking on a trip from Florida to Seattle. The first half of the book describes his practice and preparation, especially taking off and landing on water. Bach and his seaplane "speak" to each other and develop a bond over time. The short, conversational chapters are colorfully illustrated with photographs of Puff taken by Bach's travel companion, Dan Nickens, who flies his own plane on the journey. Because they cross the continent in small seaplanes, they can land in deserted areas along lakes and rivers, seeing parts of America that few others encounter. Facing weather challenges and mechanical difficulties, Bach reveals life lessons he has learned, such as, "If we want adventure in our lives, nobody's going to make it happen but us." VERDICT Read this if you are a Bach fan or wish to share in his exhilaration of flying.—Janet Clapp, N. Clarendon, VT

Library Journal

The author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and numerous volumes about flying returns with an account of a cross-country flight in his new SeaRey amphibious plane. In 2012, Bach suffered a near-fatal crash in this craft right after he submitted the manuscript to his publisher, so the text overflows with torrents of dramatic and other ironies, especially in his characteristic effervescent homilies about how "you call down your angels, and somehow they see you through your storms." The journey the author describes--from Florida, where he bought the plane he named Puff, to Seattle, his home--took 62 hours in the air and was punctuated by minor mechanical problems, multiple landings on water, many conversations with his plane (yes, the aircraft replied), some hassles with storms, and some rhapsodizing about geology, rivers, lakes, the wilderness and feathers. Bach saw feathers several places and decided they signified something. Many chapters (all are brief) conclude with a sentence that begins, "If I've learned one lesson in all my days…," a sentence completed with some banality that will appear soon in a Facebook meme--like "True for others isn't true for me." Bach shows an odd insensitivity to people who have not made a fortune writing best-sellers. On one remote lake, he sniffs: "These places are a few miles from where some folks live, stressed in I-have-to lives. To get from there to here you need a quest, and a way to travel." Not to mention lots of money. Greeting-card philosophy, as light and common as feathers.

Kirkus Reviews