Rating: 
Summary: I guess you just had to be there...
Review: An excellant book that is at times laugh out loud funny. One of the main characters, Andy, graduated a couple years behind me and I was aquainted with him so it made the book even more real. The people described are defintely the real deal. It's a book that I reread nearly every year.
Rating:
Summary: I guess you just had to be there...
Review: An excellant book that is at times laugh out loud funny. One of the main characters, Andy, graduated a couple years behind me and I was aquainted with him so it made the book even more real. The people described are defintely the real deal. It's a book that I reread nearly every year.
Rating: 
Summary: This drab, disorganized book neither amuses nor instructs.
Review: Behold a rarity: A boring book about the sea. John McPhee recounts an interminable list of meaningless details of a boring trip he took on a U.S. Merchant Marine vessel. There were several times that I almost decided not to finish, but I gamely kept on, thinking that things would get better. They didn't. The book tells no story. It starts at the beginning of the voyage and ends at its end, but the vignettes in between are presented in seemingly random order. (And not always in between -- we are treated to decidedly not-funny stories of the Captain's shore travails, playing mediocre golf and unable to navigate suburban streets.) We never know quite where we'll be next. If this technique is supposed to suggest the sameness of a modern commercial voyage, it flopped for me; I found it simply irritating. Similarly mystifying is the book's preference for irrelevant detail over human insight. We hear a lot about what people are wearing. We are told about other sailors and other voyages, and about labor union rules. We get a detailed exegesis of Plimsoll marks. But there is precious little about what anyone is thinking or feeling, or why we should care about any of these details. The author clearly intended us to feel some sort of regret for a fading way of life, but I couldn't muster up much sympathy for these drably painted marionettes. What's the point of all this? No humor, no human interest, no wit, no excitement, no profound philosophical insights. I knew nothing at the end that I didn't know at the beginning (OK, the Plimsoll stuff was new), and wasn't amused along the way. I cannot hazard a guess at why the author wanted to write this book. In short, while John McPhee is a famous modern writer, the reason for that fame is nowhere evident here. It is my first McPhee, and will also be my last.
Rating:
Summary: This drab, disorganized book neither amuses nor instructs.
Review: Found in the clearance bin of the local bookstore, the title intrigued me, so I bought it. Rarely have I had such luck resulting from an impulse buy. _Looking for a Ship_ seems to take its pace from the slow and stately progress of any seagoing cargo craft. And yet the reader feels not the plodding, monotonous roll of a modern roll-on/roll-off, but instead is a passenger on the proverbial slow boat to China. You are on vacation, with a known destination, and little to do along the way but enjoy the scenery, the daily routine, and the satisfaction that mundane tasks are complete until the morrow. We follow the author's first-person perspective as he in turn follows his friend, a sailor in the United States Merchant Marine, on the never-ending quest of finding work. McPhee enters a world known only vaguely beforehand, and as his adventure progresses, we learn along with him what life is to a Merchant Mariner. I say "adventure" somewhat tongue-in-cheek; there is very little such in this book. Do not expect swashbuckling tales of derring-do. The only scene of pulse-quickening, a pirate raid while in a South American port, has not a whit of heroism, unless one agrees that saving one's own skin is of greater heroism than saving someone else's cargo. Yet McPhee weaves a compelling tale from his real life experience. The people we read about are well described, fully characterized, and vital. Everyday problems still require solutions, and the Merchant Mariner must be as adaptable and wise in solving them as any of us, if not more so in the current climate of too little work for too many sailors. Yes, I was able to put this book down. No, I didn't lose sleep while reading it. But when I closed the back cover, it was with somewhat melancholy satisfaction, as I recognized that yet another romantic calling has died at the hand of modern technology. The book ends suddenly, almost prematurely. I had found myself very interested in the lives I was introduced to, and wanted to know more. After you've finished your latest powerful read, and before you begin your next, I highly recommend that you cleanse your palette with this simple and fulfilling study of the modern Merchant Marine. I doubt you'll be disappointed. An "8" rating may be high when comparing this book with some of the classics, but _Looking for a Ship_ is not trying to be a classic. Its aims are limited, yet few books hit their intended mark as cleanly as this one does. I give McPhee great credit for so elegantly doing exactly what he set out to do.
Rating: 
Summary: Cleanse your reading palette
Review: Found in the clearance bin of the local bookstore, the title intrigued me, so I bought it. Rarely have I had such luck resulting from an impulse buy. _Looking for a Ship_ seems to take its pace from the slow and stately progress of any seagoing cargo craft. And yet the reader feels not the plodding, monotonous roll of a modern roll-on/roll-off, but instead is a passenger on the proverbial slow boat to China. You are on vacation, with a known destination, and little to do along the way but enjoy the scenery, the daily routine, and the satisfaction that mundane tasks are complete until the morrow. We follow the author's first-person perspective as he in turn follows his friend, a sailor in the United States Merchant Marine, on the never-ending quest of finding work. McPhee enters a world known only vaguely beforehand, and as his adventure progresses, we learn along with him what life is to a Merchant Mariner. I say "adventure" somewhat tongue-in-cheek; there is very little such in this book. Do not expect swashbuckling tales of derring-do. The only scene of pulse-quickening, a pirate raid while in a South American port, has not a whit of heroism, unless one agrees that saving one's own skin is of greater heroism than saving someone else's cargo. Yet McPhee weaves a compelling tale from his real life experience. The people we read about are well described, fully characterized, and vital. Everyday problems still require solutions, and the Merchant Mariner must be as adaptable and wise in solving them as any of us, if not more so in the current climate of too little work for too many sailors. Yes, I was able to put this book down. No, I didn't lose sleep while reading it. But when I closed the back cover, it was with somewhat melancholy satisfaction, as I recognized that yet another romantic calling has died at the hand of modern technology. The book ends suddenly, almost prematurely. I had found myself very interested in the lives I was introduced to, and wanted to know more. After you've finished your latest powerful read, and before you begin your next, I highly recommend that you cleanse your palette with this simple and fulfilling study of the modern Merchant Marine. I doubt you'll be disappointed. An "8" rating may be high when comparing this book with some of the classics, but _Looking for a Ship_ is not trying to be a classic. Its aims are limited, yet few books hit their intended mark as cleanly as this one does. I give McPhee great credit for so elegantly doing exactly what he set out to do.
Rating:
Summary: Not a novel
Review: Great insight an into the workings of the American Merchant Marine service at the time of 1990; eye opening as to how far down it had come from being at the top, insight into some of the people that crew and captain the ships, some of the problems the ships/crews have; structural, economic, political, and the perils of modern day South American pirates.
More factual, not a great story, not a novel to pick up after all the Horatio Hornblowers are read. 5 stars for the information and insight which you wont get many other places, not for the writing style or pace.
Rating:
Summary: READ ANYTHING BY JOHN MCPHEE!!! YOU CAN'T GO WRONG!!
Review: I rarely re-read a book, but this is one I find myself reading again and again. It also was my first introduction to John McPhee, and he has since become my favorite living author! He could write about quilting bees and make it interesting!
Rating:
Summary: A bittersweet experience....
Review: I think I was born wanting to go to sea. I had never even seen an ocean as a kid, but I instinctually seemed to have a knowlege and a love of ships and the sea. As I grew older it puzzled me that the Merchant Marine wasn't considered a viable career choice. It also puzzled me that I never met anyone who had worked in the merchant service later than the early 50's. There was also the fact that the world's biggest industrial powerhouse seemed to have so few American flagged vessels..... Well, this book explains things. You can't get a berth on an American flagged ship for the same reason it is becoming impossible to find a factory job inland- the corporations decided that it was cheaper to hire cheap foreign labor and flag their ships in third world countries to get around taxes and decent working conditions.
That is why reading this book is a bittersweet experience. On the one hand it is great reading about famous captains or modern day pirates, but on the other, you realise that you'll never know any part of such a life. Pretty hard to get a sea card when licensed officers are being "shoved down the hawse-pipe" to serve as deckhands....
When I finished this book I dug out my old Bowditch and sextent and thought about what could have been. Maybe I couldn't have cut it, but damn it, I deserved a chance to find out.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting read
Review: If you've ever wondered how the U.S. Merchant Marine works or just want to read a modern seafaring non fiction book, this is the book for you. Great read, very interesting
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and enlightening - an engrossing book
Review: It's both entertaining and informative of the difficulties of a merchant marine to get aboard a ship and then to be aboard. A nice, light read
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