All Fisherman are Liars: True Adventures at Sea | Linda Greenlaw

All Fisherman are Liars: True Adventures at Sea | Linda Greenlaw | Swapping tales over a pint and a chowder

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All Fisherman are ...

	All Fisherman are Liars: True Adventures at Sea Linda Greenlaw Hyperion, 2005 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

inda Greenlaw, the New York Times bestselling author of The Lobster Chronicles and The Hungry Ocean, brings us a riveting and uproarious collection of tales of fishing and adventure at sea.

Marine science, diving adventure, boat regulations and management and more blend with riveting adventure tales

If it's a salty yarn you hunger for, you can't go wrong with swordfishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw's latest adventure All Fishermen Are Liars: True Adventures At Sea. Her sea stories are true and involve both death-defying and some funny challenges of professional sailors - from surviving a shipwreck by swimming 10 hours in a hurricane to using rock music as a tuna lure. Marine science, diving adventure, boat regulations and management and more blend with riveting adventure tales.

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Swapping tales over a pint and a chowder

After two books of no-nonsense stories about life at sea, first as a swordboat captain and next as a lobsterman, Linda Greenlaw kicks back at a Portland, Maine, watering hole with a few fellow salts to swap yarns. And, while the title clearly states that "all fishermen are liars," these brine-encrusted adventures are all purportedly true -- if perhaps a bit stretched. Bracketing the stories themselves are Linda's efforts to convince a dear friend and mentor to consider full or partial retirement or risk a lonely death at sea. The text is also brimming with Linda's thoughtful musings about life, love and family, much of which she weaves into a series of fisherman's metaphors.

Linda's book is populated, as usual, by an assortment of characters, most of whom would be equally fun to meet over a pint and chowder. Foremost among them are Alden, Linda's flawed but faithful friend, and George and Tommy, two ne'er-do-wells who have been thoroughly shredded by Linda to the extent I'm surprised they consented to join the bar crowd for her book jacket photo, much less be identified by name. But the meat of "Liars" is the collection of sea stories, some harrowing, some funny, some sad, some inspiring. Linda Greenlaw has a gift for bringing her narrative to life.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(n e t) editor

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Some good stories

This is a fun book for those of who like to sit around and swap sea and fish stories. It has a lot of interest and a very "easy read". Linda also gives you a feel for the "community of North Atlatnic fishermen" that participate in this often very unforgiving and dangerous profession. This book is clearly the best of her books that I have read.

Swappin' yarns down at the Dry Dock

"Every date and detail and description is accurate and completely well grounded in fact. Honest." - Author Linda Greenlaw on the tales in ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS

Linda Greenlaw, the sometime Maine swordfish-boat captain and lobster trawler, who's entertained armchair seagoing fishers with The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey and The Lobster Chronicles : Life On a Very Small Island, breaks new personal ground with this anthology of salty tales ostensibly remembered from one session of yarn spinning at the Dry Dock Restaurant and Tavern in Portland, Maine, which, as Linda states, is one of her favorite watering holes and really does exist (though, according to reviews of the place on the Web, it emphatically doesn't appeal to everyone).

As with any collection of stories based on a profession, whether it's penned by a cabdriver, airline attendant, neurosurgeon, golfer, madam, rodeo rider, astrophysicist, hockey player, test pilot or chef, the reader must have some threshold of interest in the subject or all is lost. Personally, I couldn't care less about hockey, golf or the rodeo circuit. On the other hand, I once found a cabby's workplace stories (No Guns, No Knives, No Personal Checks: The Tales of a San Francisco Cab Driver), which I wouldn't have otherwise read unless urged to do so, surprisingly good. In the case of ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS, I used to ocean fish when I was a kid and I find the on-deck assault of marine air across a moving vessel exhilarating, so the potential was there to be entertained. If the prospects of fish as food and water deeper than your bath make you queasy, then perhaps it's best to pass.

In my experience, it's unusual to come upon a five-star compendium of short stories because the inclusions may individually run the gamut from awful to mediocre to quite good. Linda's collection happily avoids the low end. Since all are at least minimally interesting, and Greenlaw herself is personable and congenial, four stars are due.

Vicarious danger thrills. Thus, the chapters "Seamanship" and "Running Out Your Time" are perhaps the best, both involving storms at sea that endanger Linda herself in the former and an acquaintance in the latter. Conversely, the chapter "Navigation", in which Greenlaw's two young nephews learn valuable lessons on a day spent fishing with Dad, was a little too cute for my tastes. The rest fall somewhere in between and, despite the book's title, none are so outrageous as to be unbelievable. Well, maybe the tale about the steamship Royal Tar is a bit tall.

By the end of the author's last book, THE LOBSTER CHRONICLES, she seemed fretful of the fact that, then at 40, she remained unmarried and without children. Her loneliness was uncomfortably evident. ("I have spent much time waiting for Mr. Right, who does not appear to be looking for me.") In ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS, she seems to have perked up a bit.

Sail on, Linda, into fair weather and calm seas.

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Not bad but not in the same league as "The Hungry Ocean"