Hemingway's Boat has the dubious distinction of being my first unfinished book of 2012. After fighting my way through 215 pages, I simply decided I didn't have it in me to continue for another 350. Don't get me wrong, the book is well-researched and well-written, but my interest in Hemingway is not deep enough for me to enjoy reading hundreds of pages about, well, Hemingway's boat, Pilar, the people who joined him aboard (and in some cases, their own life stories), the fish he caught, the books he wrote, and the relationships he crumbled. For the ultimate Hemingway enthusiast, this book may be just the thing, but for the casual reader and admirer, I'd recommend Paris Wife (one of the best books I read in 2011).
As a side note, something Nick Hornby wrote in Polysyallabic Spree came to mind more than once. I'm paraphrasing here, but what he wrote is that when an author sets out to write a biography, he should have to apply to a National Biography Office which will have the sole ability to set to maximum number of pages that may be written about said person/aspect of person. By my count, this book exceeded it's allowable pages by many score. It did, however, succeed in making me want to visit Cuba even more than I did previously.
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