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rozarka's review
5.0
This is such a pretty book: the cover, the illustrations, the content. It was interesting and educational and the only reason it took me so long to finish it is that I just had to google every other song and listen to it while reading about its origins and meaning.
kruu_dao's review
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
I was worried at first that this might have been a bit of a cash grab based on the lockdown 2020-2021 phenomena of sea shanty popularity, especially as the author is the one who started the viral trend on Youtube. And yes, there are probably elements of this, especially with the inclusion of his own songs at the end, but overall, this was a physically stunning book and a nice entertaining intro to the world of sea shanties.
This creates a conundrum, though, as I think listening to it as an audiobook would be best, but the book itself is a stunning addition to the bookshelves. A gorgeous embossed hardcover (no DUST JACKETS!!!) with really lovely illustrations throughout, which beautifully added to the shanties. So, the book itself is a work of art to own. However, it is difficult to read sea shanties, realistically, as you need to know the rhythm. The author makes a sound effort to inform the audience of this, but I am not musically inclined enough to interpret that accurately. So I Youtubed the shanties and listened to them as I read, and I think this is the ONLY way to actually 'read' the book. It brought the shanties to life, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the different versions. But it did make me wonder if I should have tried to find the audiobook instead, so that the wording matched and I could reduce my Googling. Best advice I have is to read along AND had the audiobook going. I imagine that will be very entertaining.
Lastly, some reviews have mentioned that they wished it had more history for the sea shanties. I didn't really find that an issue, as I wanted an easy introduction. If I feel the need for a more academic look at the genre, which I think is unlikely, then I will find a more detailed exploration. If you yourself want a detailed informative text, this won't be for you. If you just want to listen to some sea shanties and know a bit about the story behind them, then read away away, Johnny read away! Hey!
This creates a conundrum, though, as I think listening to it as an audiobook would be best, but the book itself is a stunning addition to the bookshelves. A gorgeous embossed hardcover (no DUST JACKETS!!!) with really lovely illustrations throughout, which beautifully added to the shanties. So, the book itself is a work of art to own. However, it is difficult to read sea shanties, realistically, as you need to know the rhythm. The author makes a sound effort to inform the audience of this, but I am not musically inclined enough to interpret that accurately. So I Youtubed the shanties and listened to them as I read, and I think this is the ONLY way to actually 'read' the book. It brought the shanties to life, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the different versions. But it did make me wonder if I should have tried to find the audiobook instead, so that the wording matched and I could reduce my Googling. Best advice I have is to read along AND had the audiobook going. I imagine that will be very entertaining.
Lastly, some reviews have mentioned that they wished it had more history for the sea shanties. I didn't really find that an issue, as I wanted an easy introduction. If I feel the need for a more academic look at the genre, which I think is unlikely, then I will find a more detailed exploration. If you yourself want a detailed informative text, this won't be for you. If you just want to listen to some sea shanties and know a bit about the story behind them, then read away away, Johnny read away! Hey!
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