Coasting is a travel book by Jonathan Raban. It has received a positive review by Beryl Bainbridge. Written as a travelogue, Coasting describes Jonathan Raban's single-handed 4,000 mile voyage around Britain which he made in 1982 in an old restored 32-foot sea-going ketch, the Gosfield Maid. An important point is that Raban sailed with a chart and a hand-bearing compass; he sailed by the look of the coastline. His story takes various digressions, just as his journey does, as he mulls over his childhood as the son of a vicar in the Church of England, and the current state of Britain under... Margaret Thatcher during the time of the Falklands War. Chapter Two is a description of the dogged insularity of the Manx, who he compares to the Falkland Islanders, whilst the Isle of Man becomes a metaphor for the insularity of the larger island on which he himself had been brought up and lived up till this point. Raban himself has commented on his own attitude to England and the influence of Margaret Thatcher on Britain at the time of writing his book. The British he sees as being famous for their insular arrogance and condescension.
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