Their Fathers' Work: Casting Nets with the World's Fishermen

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Summary: Tears through the lack of seriousness people give fishing
Review: Coming from a new generation fisherman, I find it very frustrating that the thousands of people who eat fish never appreciate its origin, or the work to attain such seafood. Such is the life of a farmer, a cattle rustler, a steel worker, the carpenter. The very root of our existence and the ability to maintain it comes from the working man, the most underestimated yet still proud individual.

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Summary: McCloskey tells the raw truth about commercial fishing.
Review: For twenty-years now, Bill McCloskey has been living and working with Alaska fishermen from Prince William Sound to the Bering Sea. He has many friends among them in Cordova, Kodiak, Chignik, Dutch Harbor and Seattle, Washington. He knows us and writes about us better than anyone else. Because he's been straight with fishermen from Day One, I think many men and women have felt comfortable confiding in Bill. I remember being with him in Chignik several years ago when he was doing research for the chapter in THEIR FATHERS' WORK on the Alaska salmon fisheries. He was welcomed with open arms by some of that fleet's top highliners: David Anderson, Ernie Carlson, Maurie Pedersen and others. They took him out on their seiners, up in their planes and into their homes, in my opinion, because they judged him to be a straight-shooter and a good shipmate. If you ask Captain Leif Locklinghom, a long-time Bering Sea king crab highliner, he'll tell you the same. So won't Chuck Bu! ! ndrant and Bart Eaton, highliners themselves and currently owners of Alaska's largest seafood processing company, Trident Seafoods. Reading THEIR FATHERS' WORK, especially the Alaska chapters, will put you in the shoes of the fishermen who work Alaskan waters daily trying to squeeze a living out of elusive fish and shellfish stocks, rough seas, high winds and cold temperatures.

Alaska is an adventure-of-a-lifetime every person should experience at least once. McCloskey is the the right guy to take you on your first trip to the wild-side of Alaska, without even leaving your living room.

Give THEIR FATHERS' WORK a summer read. It's authentic, visceral and exciting, which is why I gave it Five Stars.

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Summary: William McCloskey is the voice of the working fisherman.
Review: I'd like to tell you a little about William McCloskey, the author of Their Fathers' Work and a man far too modest to be his own press agent. This is a man who has been obsessed with the sea since his days as a Coast Guardsman in the 1950s, and obsessed with commercial fishing since he first experienced the thrill of a big haul. William Warner, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize - winning book Beautiful Swimmers about the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery, said of McCloskey, "No one writing today can match his knowledge of fishing or the breadth of his experience at sea. He is the writer of record on world fishing today." The Smithsonian Magazine has said of McCloskey that "his achievement has been to write a paean for a way of life." Library Journal suggested that "his vivid descriptions of maritime fishing might well be placed beside Peter Matthiessen's Men's Lives for anyone interested in understanding the hard price these people pay for their chosen way of life." I believe (ok, I'm biased) that Their Fathers' Work is McCloskey's finest book, the crowning achievement of a journalist who has mastered his craft and informed it with 22 years at sea. Unprecedented in sweep, Their Fathers' Work takes us from Bristol Bay, Alaska, to Chile, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the Grand Banks, and Newfoundland. We meet prosperous fishermen and others who barely subsist; sometimes the two work within sight of one another. Among the shifting decks and shifting fortunes, in pursuit of an invisible wealth, change is the only constant. McCloskey acknowledges the hardships while he chronicles the exuberance. He notes the problems, but also points out solutions that have worked. He shows us the impossible optimism, the dejection, the sleepless work fueled be elation and crushing mortgages, and the occasional sudden death. Years ago, the Anchorage Times said, "What such writers as Owen Wister and J. Frank Dobie were to the cowboy, Bill McCloskey may be to the Alaskan fisherman." The years have proved this statement prophetic, not only for Alaska fishermen but for those around the world. Says McCloskey: "I can only tell my tales, outline the issues, and hope for the best. If I've delivered nothing but a lament for those of a dying breed, we'll be the poorer for it."

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Summary: A bit 'upity' for the subject matter.
Review: The author knows his subject matter but gets too heavy with all the legal bs and too light on the human stories. Seems like the author couldn't decide if he wanted to write a text book or a down to earth type story.

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Summary: Telling it like it is
Review: The best book I've read dealing with the social AND political AND cultural aspects of commercial fishing. Making no excuses for the industry or the people who condemn it. His stories are compelling and enrapturing as well as extremely informative. It'll give understanding of why the worlds oceans are in the state they are in and all the players who have caused it to be where it is. Enjoy!

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Summary: An Insider's Hard Look at Commercial Fishing
Review: There can't be another like William McCloskey in the worlds of fishing and writing. Imagine someone whose appetite for his subject is so strong that he spends half a lifetime hiring out as a working-stiff fishermen on commercial boats all over the world, then draws his conclusions in vivid, scalding, haunting terms. His realistic ideas might offend both knee-jerk conservationists and plundering meat-fishermen -- the surest sign that he has done his job well. When you finish this book, you will feel like wiping the salt spray from your face. A superb piece of work by a master fisherman and writer and the perfect companion piece to books like The Perfect Storm..

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Summary: Outstanding, I could smell the sea air and see the fish.
Review: This book should be required reading in biology and marine life studies, for the fishing industry, fishermen, environmentalists and especially politicians & officials who formulate policy. It is a book for all nations and races, particularly those who depend upon resources from the sea.

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Summary: If you have ever eaten a fish or crab, then read this book!
Review: This is a superb book. McCloskey writes from such a deep base of personal experience, that within a few lines we are transported to the heaving, noisy and often foul-smelling deck of a rusty trawler pitching in a cold northern sea or the cramped camaraderie of the galley on a Japanese squid boat. You feel the shudder of the steel deck as the boat pitches into a steep swell, taste the salt in the air and gag on the stench of diesel fumes and dead fish. The book is a collection of essays, exploring the challenges that face commercial fishermen in various parts of the globe. We hear lots of languages - Russian, English, Spanish, Norwegian, Japanese and more - and experience very different cultures, each united by the sea and the grueling task of pulling food from its depths. Gradually, the similarities grow much larger than the differences. No matter where he is, McCloskey can rapidly blend into the crew becoming just one more figure shrouded in foul weather gear pulling in the nets. This remarkable desire to muck-in with the deckhands no matter how hard the work or how severe the conditions, is the secret to his vivid and exciting writing. I can never look at a piece of sushi or a bag of fish and chips in quiet the same way.

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Summary: By Far best by william mccloskey
Review: This was by far of the three books i have red by william mccolskey the favorite he has another book called fish decks cannot find on amazon have to let you know about that one.

unlike highliners and breakers this one is nonfiction and follows along as the author goes back to alaska and around alaska where he served in the coast guard 20 years before and now is crab fishing and goes fishing around georges bank of the coast of chile and new zeland ,indonesia,and japan.looking for fish and shellfish. it also extensively covers the wreck of the exxon valdezand the effect on the fishing industry and the enviroment.Fisherman were making more money selling back buckets of oil back to exxon.He goes to the tokyo tsukiji market which i have seen on a national geographic program. This place is huge they figure they have on any given day 330 different species for sale which come from all around the world for example They have prawns and shrimp from 64 nations the market and auction generate enough trash to fill 200 trash trucks a day.It cover alot of the political side of fishing and how the different regulations have come about to protect the fish.
You read this book it is amazing that they fish with nets miles long and never think about depleteing the resources.Also learned tha over fishing was not the only thing affecting the amount of fish being caught runoff from farms both animal and agricultural.And fish farms that apeear on the surface appear to be a good thing end up causing harm to native fish.