Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot

**Sunday Times Besteller** **Book of the Week on Radio 4** 'One of the most constantly fascinating, but consistently under-appreciated aspects of modern life is the business of flying. Mark Vanhoenacker has written the ideal book on the subject- a description of what it s like to fly by a commercial pilot who is also a master prose stylist and a deeply sensitive human being. This is a man who is at once a technical expert he flies 747s across continents and a poet of the skies. This couldn t be more highly recommended.' Alain de Botton Think back to when you first flew. When you first left the Earth, and travelled high and fast above its turning arc. When you looked down on a new world, captured simply and perfectly through a window fringed with ice. When you descended towards a city, and arrived from the sky as effortlessly as daybreak. In Skyfaring, airline pilot and flight romantic Mark Vanhoenacker shares his irrepressible love of flying, on a journey from day to night, from new ways of mapmaking and the poetry of physics to the names of winds and the nature of clouds. Here, anew, is the simple wonder that remains at th

About the Author :
Mark Vanhoenacker left academia to work as a management consultant, a position that afforded him regular opportunities to stare out of airplane windows and recall childhood dreams of becoming a pilot. He began his flight training in 2001. Today, as a Senior First Officer for British Airways, Mark flies Boeing 747s to major cities around the world. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Times and a columnist for Slate. When his head is not in the clouds, he divides his time between London and New York.

Review :
"Vanhoenacker is a remarkable writer. In Skyfaring he reveals his passion for flight, the mechanics of planes, the weightless, meaningful geography of the skies and the scent of the cities he flies to. He creates a still, almost poetic point in the turning, travelling world. This mesmerising book will make you view the world differently. All aboard!" "[An] ode to the wonder of flight in the tradition of the great pioneer pilot-author Antoine de Saint Exupéry and Charles Lindbergh... flying remains a magical business" "Mr Vanhoenacker, fortunately for his readers, has lost none of his sense of wonder at the miracle of flight itself... a beautifully observed collection of details, scenes, emotions and facts from the world above the world" "Mr Vanhoenacker, fortunately for his readers, has lost none of his sense of wonder at the miracle of flight itself... a beautifully observed collection of details, scenes, emotions and facts from the world above the world" "A description of what it’s like to fly by a commercial pilot who is also a master prose stylist… This is a man who is at once a technical expert – he flies 747s across continents – and a poet of the skies. This couldn’t be more highly recommended" "A beauty. For so many flying has become humdrum: a bus journey to be endured then forgotten, not enjoyed and recalled. Vanhoenacker makes it wondrous again." "Beautifully... simply put. Vanhoenacker's prose has a functional eloquence that carries the reader along for the ride." "Reminds us of the magic of aviation... full of information that is wonderful in its simplicity" "[An] endlessly surprising, strikingly original book... combines intelligence and sensitivity with an "outward-looking introspection"" "Not since Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic Vol de Nuit…has there been such a fantastic book about flying… Skyfaring takes the genre to a whole new level. I found myself turning over the corners of almost every page with excitement and admiration" "Engaging, even poetic...Vanhoenacker’s passionate and beautifully written book will remind even the most jaded traveller of the wonder of flight" "An elegant meditation on how flying can lift the soul" "A longhaul airline pilot whose vision is unexpectedly poetic and romantic...what stood out for me was that sense of wonder up there...a rather lovely book" "A poet of the skies to rival St Exupéry... an author of real distinction with a genuinely poetic sensibility as well as a memorable turn of phrase... a perfect voice for a glorious subject... This really is a very good book" "...both a manual for infrequent flyers (wherein the physics and metaphysics of time and space are for once essayed in a perfectly straightforward manner) and a skilful meditation on the glories of traversing the earth at the helm of mankind's greatest technological achievement that - yes - flies from the page"