I appreciate works that create a compelling main character and storyline that pulls me through the facts. I do not like nonfiction presented as facts only, or boring encyclopedia entries (otherwise, I would simple read a short report on the topic and move on). I have written before, when reviewing nonfiction, that nonfiction is not my preference. The edition I read includes a reader’s supplement with pictures of the raft and some of the sea creatures they encountered, which helped me to visualize the tale.

Perhaps the journey at sea is all the more meaningful because of the wind-up and the fact that we know what struggles Heyerdahl went through for the mere opportunity to put his life at risk.īecause of all the struggles, the time on the islands when they finally do arrive is all the sweeter (it’s not really a spoiler that they lived, as he is telling us the story from after the fact). The time at sea is my favorite part: prior to this, we follow Heyerdahl as he tries to convince others that his thesis could be true, and we follow his obstacles as he tries to scrape a voyage together with five willing crewmates. Not to mention that they are crammed on a raft with a single make-shift cabin and moving floorboards. They encounter sharks, as well as some specifies of marine life that had not been known to exist. Their voyage is not without danger, of course.

Not only do they have provisions on board, but at times they are bombarded with flying fish, and they find fishing for their preferred dinners easy enough to accomplish. They must survive at sea for quite some time, which they find is rather easy to do. They travel from South America to the islands in the South Seas (they aim for whichever one they can safely land on, given the cumbersome raft and the sharp reefs). This is a classic adventure tale of six men at sea. You couldn’t pay most people enough to take such a voyage. The raft had no motor and was mostly subject to the ocean currents. He set out to prove that this hypothesis could be true by building an ancient-style raft out of balsa wood and rope. This nonfiction piece follows Thor Heyerdahl, who hypothesized that humans from the east populated the islands in the South Seas, pointing to evidence from mythology, history, and even biology. When I gave my dad a copy of Life of Pi to read, he recommended I read Kon-Tiki, noting that it is a typical survival-at-sea story that may have helped inspire Martel’s Life of Pi.Īfter reading it, I do think my dad is right.

Kon tiki book