Rating: 
Summary: Empty Traps
Review: 'The Lobster Chronicles' describes Linda Greenlaw's frustrating lobster season off a Maine island. As Linda pulls up empty traps, the reader feels there is also something missing in the text.The book does a nice job depicting life on a Maine island, where the author excels at painting the natural and physical features of the isle. You sniff the saltwater, pines and barnacles. Some of the island characters are wonderful in their stoic nature with an occasional streak of zaniness. Linda gives us a very textbook lesson in lobstering. We learn about these delicious giant insects, how they are captured and how they are replenished. What Ms. Greenlaw does not provide is an honest depiction of herself. Why would an enormously successful sword fishing captain and best-selling author, settle on a tiny island? Why is her bank account so tight, when we know her earnings on the first book were very good? Perhaps she lost all the money. Tell us about it? Maybe a love or tragedy sent her home? We want to know? 'The Lobster Chronicles' is a good travel log. Like the missing lobsters, the book is empty when it comes honest self perspective.
Rating:
Summary: No Story
Review: A fitting title, but no story here other than the quiet life of a tomboy and her father. Nothing really happens, at least not in a way that was interesting to me. I enjoyed the book, I was relaxed by the book and I learned from the book. But in the end Lobster Chronicles was a bit lite for me. I never really got to know or understand any of the characters, the author included. I did not read her 1st book about sword fishing, but must assume it was better written than this one.
Michael Duranko
www.bootism.com
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the time to read
Review: A very good chronicle from an interesting author. "The Hungry Ocean" is a good read also to fully understand a deeper meaning of this book. It's very much worth your time to read this if you love fishing or have a love of any and almost everything to do with the water. I'm too landlocked. I hope she goes back to fishing the swords. She certainly seems to want to. May God be with her.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely, but incomplete
Review: A wonderful read by the ever engaging Linda Greenlaw who delivers a bittersweet and loving snapshot of her remote home island. A fascinating look inside the traditional lobster trade, the book is really about Greenlaw's own struggles to find meaning in her work, her life, and to begin to accept the mortality of her parents. My only regret is that the book stops quite abruptly, leaving several story lines incomplete, requiring a terse afterword to sketch in some missing pieces. But any time spent with Greenlaw is quality time; her anecdotes manage to be both charming and sharp-eyed. She'll be getting lots of mail over the one jarring section in the book, her rant over dog ownership: Greenlaw derides anyone who stoops to the poop and scoop element. Interestingly, it is this passage which gives us the key to the real theme in this book, Greenlaw's longing for a home, husband and children. Enduring love, like lobster fishing and dog ownership, involves some nasty bits, like handling rancid bait, picking up dirty socks, or dog poop. She understands the connection between the hard, often punishing work of fishing and its rewards...but until she can see what inspires a person to clean up after their dog, she won't be ready for a human of her own. But she'll make it there; this woman has a huge heart and wonderful stories. Buy her books, they are rare treats.
Rating:
Summary: An island you'd like to visit
Review: After reading this book, I went to a book signing with Linda Greenlaw. She is quite personable and funny. You'd not think "fisherwoman" when you see her as she seems a "regular" type person. Linda wants her next book to be a novel and as this (Lobster Chronicles) book is so easy to follow and makes you feel as if you know the neighbors (especially Rita!) I feel a novel from her will be a treasure.
Rating: 
Summary: Does not live up to the reviews
Review: Don't waste your money on this book. After reading the reviews, I was expecting a short story that was both entertaining and written with style. I found neither to be true. The prose is not written in a flowing, easy to read way, and the story line has nothing to say. The characters lacked character and could have been developed better. The story is shallow and the outcome predictable.
Rating:
Summary: Not on the same level as "The Hungry Ocean"
Review: First time authors and musicians who experience success often have a problem: what do they do for an encore? Frequently, authors fail to be as successful with their follow-up effort; hence the term "sophomore jinx." Unfortunately, Greenlaw faces that problem. While her writing style remains engaging and welcoming, there' s just not a lot of substance to this recounting of her time on Isle Au Haut, the "very small island" of the title. Its not really her fault, there are items of interest here, its just the whole thing doesn't prove to be very compelling. The book possibly should have been shorter and it might have worked better. Unlike "The Hungry Ocean," which had the hook of her being the only known female swordfish boat captain, and offered the danger of sailing the ocean in sometimes dangerous waters, lobstering just seems a little, well, boring. To her credit, she may have realized this and, in reality, lobstering isn't the primary focus of the book. But still, despite more than a few interesting characters populating the island, there's just not a lot of interest going on here. Having said that, I still recommend the book. As noted, she does have an engaging writing style and, as with her previous book, you finish wishing you could go somewhere and sit down for a drink with her.
Rating: 
Summary: Remarkable Person
Review: Firstly, I use the word person for the author does not like to be labeled with some feminine or neuter version of fisherman, and secondly because anyone who has a list of accomplishments that Linda Greenlaw has is remarkable, period. She excelled as an athlete, a student, eventually completing her studies at Colby College, and then becoming the captain of a swordboat, a captain that equaled her male peers, and by many who would know, exceeded them all. Her 17-year career as a fisherman had all the hardships that anyone choosing the life would encounter, compounded by the fact she was a woman. Trouble actually started the day she told her mother that she was off to the sea after she had earned her diploma. Her mother proceeded to take out her anger on the contents of the kitchen cabinets, and very little that was breakable remained whole. Throughout her career as an offshore captain she not only brought home the swordfish that were unfortunate enough to cross her path, she brought home her boat and her men. She did this year after year in the most dangerous career there is, commercial fishing. The movie from the book of the same title, "The Perfect Storm", introduced millions to the loss of the Andrea Gale, her crew, and also the boat captained by Linda Greenlaw. She wrote a book about what life was like at sea for a month or more at a time hunting her prey. The book was called, "The Hungry Ocean", and it made Linda Greenlaw in to a best selling author. Her work remained for 6 months on the NYT Bestseller List. Not bad for a first time author. "The Lobster Chronicles", will likely follow her first success, for it is as interesting, and it shows just how well this, lady, (excuse me captain), can write. She is candid, very funny, self-deprecating, and has the oh so elusive perceptive eye of a true writer. The end of the book hints that another shift in her career may take place. I hope that it does not preclude her from pursuing the novel she has talked of writing. The only plan she has yet to accomplish is that of becoming a wife and mother that she speaks of with such candor and yearning. She is also humorously practical when she shares that of the 47 full-time residents that live on the island she calls home, there are only 3 single men. One man is her cousin and the two others are gay. Not exactly a target rich environment for her family planning goals. Her sister called her first book, "a novel length personal ad". The author talks of small town Maine family trees as, "being painted in the abstract", and that her family's tree has been referred to as, "more of a wreath". She lives on the island she grew up on, a 6 mile by 3 mile rock 7 miles off the coast of Maine. She explains that if any readers think they may become enamored of island life that they try a list of islands she suggests, for they have all that tourists need, her island, "has nothing". Forget a bank, there is no ATM. Lobsters are familiar to those of us who have grown up in New England, but like many familiarities knowledge does not always appear to the same degree. Lobster fishing is much more demanding, and lethal than I ever imagined, and if you think the high prices paid for this member of the family that includes spiders makes these people wealthy, the facts will open your eyes. The history of lobster has not always been the table delicacy of today. Serving it in prisons more than twice a week was once outlawed. The present state of lobstering and its future are also discussed, and again there is a great deal that was of more interest than I expected. The book is much more than a tale of lobsters and her search for a husband. As tiny as her island home is, 47 people still provide all the drama, and every human behavior you will find in a population 100 times its size. It seems that almost all of the permanent residents are at least interesting, and range to colorful and eccentric. After you gain a bit of familiarity with the island you will see that it would be the choice of a select groups of folks. Climate, the lack of almost everything, and the other aspects she shares require a certain personality. The books closes on a troubling note for a person very dear to her is about to learn whether months of misery will allow her to become a survivor of an all too familiar disease. And we also learn her best friend is building a brand new swordboat. Intended or not we are left hanging. This is a great book by a very talented individual who has set and accomplished pretty much all she has set out to do. The husband issue is still unfinished, but with appearances on national talk shows, and a book-signing tour, I am sure there will be more than one man willing to try and keep up with this remarkable woman. Good luck with all you do, and no matter what, keep writing!
Rating:
Summary: Not as interesting as I'd hoped
Review: Greenlaw's latest narrative sounded like an interesting read: doesn't the rustic tale of lobster fishing seem appealing in comparison with our ordinary, suburban lives? Not really, I guess. Linda should have waited another year or two so that we could get more than a picturesque snapshot of Maine. Giving the author more time to "round out" some of the personal stories could have gone a long ways toward engaging the reader. The Lobster Chronicles offers a pleasant glimpse into small-island life but didn't really live up to its full story-telling potential.
Rating:
Summary: A great real-life companion volume to "The Wooden Nickel"
Review: Having just read William Carpenter's excellent novel "The Wooden Nickel," about the tragicomic life of a Maine lobsterman, Greenlaw's book was irresistable. While anyone who has already read The Wooden Nickel will find much of the same territory covered here (much more politely), this review is really intended to tell readers of this book to HURRY UP AND BUY YOURSELF A COPY OF THE WOODEN NICKEL. I wish that I would have read The Lobster Chronicles first, and then jumped right into The Wooden Nickel. Great reading.
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