From the national bestselling, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Bad Land comes “a lively, intensely personal recounting of a voyage into a gifted writer's country and self” (The New York Times Book Review). Put Jonathan Raban on a boat and the results will be fascinating, and never more so than when he’s sailing around the serpentine, 2,000-mile coast of his native England. In this acutely perceived and beautifully written book, the bestselling author of Bad Land turns that voyage–which coincided with the Falklands war of 1982-into an occasion for meditations on his country, his childhood, and the elusive notion of home. Whether he’s chatting with bored tax exiles on the Isle of Man, wrestling down a mainsail during a titanic gale, or crashing a Scottish house party where the kilted guests turn out to be Americans, Raban is alert to the slightest nuance of meaning. One can read Coasting for his precise naturalistic descriptions or his mordant comments on the new England, where the principal industry seems to be the marketing of Englishness. But one always reads it with pleasure.

Elise had a new job, flat and relationship – and they were all making her utterly miserable. Then the obvious solution hit her: run 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain. Over the next 301 days, she saw Britain at its most wild and wonderful, and discovered that running away doesn’t solve your problems – but it's more fun than dealing with them.