The beauty of long-distance ocean travel is that you climb on board, unpack your things and stay in one place while the ship does all the traveling for you. “And then what?” your friends ask. Forty-nine days of empty ocean look like a long time, but in these engaging “letters home” about the characters on board, the ports exotic and dull, the workings of the ship itself, and the endless, sibilant sea the voice of the interior journey began to assert itself. Who knew where it would go? Readers say the result is a slow boat to everywhere they want a book to take them, a vividly told voyage on the high seas, and a penetrating look into why were compelled to go . . . and to come home