Spirit Things
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Narrated by:
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Lara Messersmith-Glavin
About this listen
A collection of essays that evoke an adventurous spirit and the craving for myth, Spirit Things examines the hidden meanings of objects found on a fishing boat, as seen through the eyes of a child. Author Lara Messersmith-Glavin blends memoir, mythology, and science as she relates the uniqueness and flavor of the Alaskan experience through her memories of growing up fishing in the commercial salmon industry off Kodiak Island.
“Spirit things” are those mundane objects that offer new insights into the world on closer consideration—fishing nets, a favorite knife, and the bioluminescent gleam of seawater in a twilight that never truly grows dark. Spirit Things recounts stories of fishing, family, synesthesia, storytelling, gender, violence, and meaning. Each essay takes an object and follows it through histories: personal, material, and scientific, drawing together the delicate lines that link things through their making and use, their genesis and evolution, and the ways they gain significance in an individual’s life.
A contemplative take on everything from childcare to neurodivergence, comfort foods to outlaws, Spirit Things uses experiences from the human world and locates them on the edges of nature. Contact with wilderness, with wildness, be it twenty-foot seas in the ocean off Alaska’s coast or chairs flying through windows of a Kodiak bar, provides an entry point for meditations on the ways in which patterns, magic, and wonder overlap.
©2022 Lara Messersmith-Glavin (P)2023 University of Alaska PressListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Many fishing memoirs are filled with high seas drama, but Messersmith-Glavin focuses instead on what Blake called the 'luminous details' as revealed in the 'spirit things' she chooses to carry her story, objects as seemingly mundane as a glove and as complex as a wave. Spirit Things will appeal to anyone who’s fallen hard for Alaska and wants to be reminded what they love—and miss—about wilderness, fishing, and those who are drawn to the far North.”
—Holly J. Hughes, author of Hold Fast, Passings, and Sailing by Ravens
“Lara Messersmith-Glavin’s essays are simultaneously thrilling and insightful as she solemnizes the objects from her youth on an Alaskan fishing boat. She masterfully illuminates the sacred in nets and winches, in salmon, skiffs and waves in this beautifully crafted collection. I was awe struck.” —Liz Prato, author of Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai’i
"Spirit Things takes readers into the depths of a life growing up on the ocean among deckhands and danger on an Alaskan commercial fishing vessel. With a framework of “spirit things”—a buoy, a winch, salmon and more, an ever-shifting life is pursed up with narratives that shape an unusual upbringing. Lara Messersmith-Glavin is indeed a child of the sea!" —Vivian Faith Prescott, author of Old Woman with Berries in Her Lap
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- By Andrew H. Hochheimer on 09-04-08
By: Andy Hillstrand, and others
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The Hungry Ocean
- By: Linda Greenlaw
- Narrated by: Linda Greenlaw
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In his number-one best seller The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger describes Linda Greenlaw as "one of the best sea captains, period, on the East Coast." Now Greenlaw tells her own riveting story of a 30 day swordfishing voyage aboard one of the best-outfitted boats on the East Coast, complete with danger, humor, and characters so colorful they seem to have been ripped from the pages of Moby Dick. The excitement starts immediately, even before Greenlaw and her five-man crew leave the dock.
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A Fun Listen and Enjoyable Listen
- By S. Perry on 12-10-08
By: Linda Greenlaw
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Shipwrecked
- By: Mishka Shubaly
- Narrated by: Mishka Shubaly
- Length: 1 hr and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In the Year of the Shark, a chance encounter between a ne'er-do-well writer and a tropical storm left him marooned on the deserted end of a Caribbean island and charged with the rescue of his four shipmates. There, Mishka Shubaly learned some valuable life lessons - among them that in the absence of whiskey, wine, and water, urine will get the job done.
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Great juxtaposition of two life changing stories
- By Andy on 07-11-16
By: Mishka Shubaly
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Rowing the Atlantic
- Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean
- By: Roz Savage
- Narrated by: Roz Savage
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Stuck in a corporate job rut and faced with an unraveling marriage at the age of thirty-six, Roz Savage sat down one night and wrote two versions of her own obituary - the one that she wanted and the one she was heading for. They were very different. She realized that if she carried on as she was, she wasn't going to end up with the life she wanted. So she turned her back on an eleven-year career as a management consultant to reinvent herself as a woman of adventure.
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boooooring
- By Amazon Customer on 04-11-17
By: Roz Savage
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The Lobster Chronicles
- Life on a Very Small Island
- By: Linda Greenlaw
- Narrated by: Linda Greenlaw
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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After 17 years at sea, Linda Greenlaw figured it was time to take a break from her career as a swordboat captain. She felt she needed to return to Isle au Haut - a tiny island seven miles from the Maine coast with a population of 70 year-round residents, 30 of whom were her relatives. She would pursue a simpler life; move back in with her parents and get to know them again; become a professional lobsterman; and find a guy, build a house, have kids, and settle down. But all doesn't go as planned.
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Was this narration sped up?
- By Linda Vanaman on 10-12-15
By: Linda Greenlaw
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Caught by the Sea
- My Life on Boats
- By: Gary Paulsen
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Gary Paulsen takes listeners along on his maiden voyage, proving that ignorance can be bliss. Also really stupid and incredibly dangerous. He tells of boats that owned him, good, bad, and beloved, and how they got him through terrifying storms that he survived by sheer luck. His spare prose conjures up shark surprises and killer waves as well as moonlight on the sea, and makes listeners feel what it’s like to sail under the stars or to lie at anchor in a tropical lagoon where dolphins leap, bathed in silver.
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Real Life Stories!
- By Roseclan on 10-25-22
By: Gary Paulsen
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Last Man Off
- By: Matthew Lewis
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hamilton
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Antarctica, June 6th 1998. 23-year-old Matt Lewis has just started his dream job: an observer aboard a deep sea fishing boat. As the crew haul in their lines for the day, the waves seem bigger than usual - they are casting shadows on the deck. A storm is brewing. What follows is an astonishing story of courage and tragedy. Lewis leads the escape onto three life rafts, where the battle for survival begins.
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Spellbinding
- By Honey Leveen on 07-04-15
By: Matthew Lewis
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The Shipping News
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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At 36, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife gets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons - and the unpredictable forces of nature and society - and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.
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Can't Explain Why I Love This Book
- By Polly on 03-06-12
By: Annie Proulx
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Castle of Water
- A Novel
- By: Dane Huckelbridge
- Narrated by: Max Winter
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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For Sophie Ducel, her honeymoon in French Polynesia was intended as a celebration of life. For Barry Bleecker, the same trip was meant to mark a new beginning - turning away from his dreary existence in Manhattan finance to seek creative inspiration. But when their small plane is downed in the middle of the South Pacific, the sole survivors of the wreck are left with one common goal: survival.
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I wanted a happy ending
- By Shanise Bell on 06-20-19
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Deep Water
- By: Watt Key
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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It's the most important rule of scuba diving: If you don't feel right, don't go down. So after her father falls ill, 12-year-old Julie Sims must take over and lead two of his clients on a dive miles off the coast of Alabama while her father stays behind in the boat. When the clients, a reckless boy Julie's age and his equally foolhardy father, disregard Julie's instructions during the dive, she quickly realizes she's in over her head. And once she surfaces, things only get worse: One of the clients is in serious condition, and their dive boat has vanished.
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DEEP WATER
- By Anonymous User on 10-19-23
By: Watt Key
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Stop Drifting, Start Rowing
- One Woman's Search for Happiness and Meaning Alone on the Pacific
- By: Roz Savage
- Narrated by: Roz Savage
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2007, Roz Savage set out to row 8,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean—alone. Despite having successfully rowed across the Atlantic the previous year, the Pacific presented the former office worker with unprecedented challenges and overpowering currents—both in the water and within herself. Crossing Earth’s largest ocean alone might seem a long way removed from everyday life, yet the lessons Roz learned about the inner journey, the ocean, and the world are relevant to all of us.
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I only listened to 1/3, so maybe it gets better?
- By Brandin on 05-14-14
By: Roz Savage
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The Secret Life of Lobsters
- By: Trevor Corson
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In this intimate portrait of an island lobstering community and an eccentric band of renegade biologists, journalist Trevor Corson escorts the listener onto the slippery decks of fishing boats, through danger-filled scuba dives, and deep into the churning currents of the Gulf of Maine to learn about the secret undersea lives of lobsters.
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Uninteresting and poorly written
- By Alexandra DuSablon on 01-10-20
By: Trevor Corson
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The Log from the Sea of Cortez
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts. Drawn from the longer Sea of Cortez, it is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure.
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Beautiful Book
- By Stuart on 10-07-17
By: John Steinbeck
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Challenger Deep
- By: Neal Shusterman
- Narrated by: Michael Curran-Dorsano
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench. Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.
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Great concept, execution problems
- By You Don't Need to Know Who I Am on 12-07-19
By: Neal Shusterman
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Whose Waves These Are
- By: Amanda Dykes
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the wake of WWII, a grieving fisherman submits a poem to a local newspaper: a rallying cry for hope, purpose...and rocks. When the poem spreads farther than he ever intended, Robert Bliss's humble words change the tide of a nation. Boxes of rocks inundate the tiny coastal Maine town, and he sets his calloused hands to work, but the building halts when tragedy strikes. Decades later, Annie Bliss is summoned back to Ansel-by-the-Sea when she learns her Great-Uncle Robert, the man who became her refuge during the hardest summer of her youth, is now the one in need of help.
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Great Story
- By Rita N. Bulington on 07-08-21
By: Amanda Dykes
What listeners say about Spirit Things
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- syrinx9
- 04-08-23
Luminous Things
Spirit Things is a beautiful exploration of the search for self, history, and the story of totemic meaning. The author’s reading is deeply felt, each individual essay achieves a luminous quality through Messersmith-Glavin’s performance. A magnificent book, I enjoyed it tremendously.
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- Jackolope
- 10-08-23
Love this story life of a true fisherwoman
I first met the author in 1991 and I learned things in this book I didn't realize but loved every second. if you have ever wondered what Alaska fishing is like from a human perspective this book really sets the bar.
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