Finding North Audiobook By George Michelsen Foy cover art

Finding North

How Navigation Makes Us Human

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Finding North

By: George Michelsen Foy
Narrated by: Tom Zingarelli
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.44

Buy for $18.44

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.

©2016 George Michelsen Foy (P)2016 Tantor Alzheimer's Disease Transportation Biographies & Memoirs Engineering Expeditions & Discoveries World Adventurers, Explorers & Survival

Critic reviews

"Voyagers of all kinds will cherish this book." (Paul Raeburn, author of The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting)
All stars
Most relevant
A wise and moving book. Lyrical , a voyage of insights that transported both to new frontiers and to self. I understood the ineluctable draw of loss and love.

Wise and moving

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What I hoped would be a good sailing story was banal drivel






What I hoped would be a good maritime story was instead banal drivel




7

Don't waste your time or money

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.