Shiver me Timbers!

I was a runner in high school, and I still dabble today.  During most long distance races (never my forte) there is always a moment during the first half of the race when exhaustion first sets in and the initial adrenaline rush is spent.  At that moment, I usually start thinking, "My goodness, how much of this race is left?"  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I find my self tonight as I sit down to write, just finishing my THIRD book. "I have to keep this pace up for 9 months?  My goodness, how much time do I have left for my six books this quarter?"  The answer is: 3 books remain and a little more than a month to go (Oct. 16th).  The initial adrenaline rush of the challenge and blogging has worn off and though I love to read, the pace is starting to feel a little frantic.  If I were in a race, this is where I would psyche myself up, "Travis you can do this.  Look, you are surrounded by people who are doing this.  You CAN do this."  And so I pull inspiration from my students, some whom have finished their fourth book. This past week, I read on lunch breaks, during football games and woke up early before church.  At 7:15pm on Sunday, I'm done.  It also helped that my wonderful students are starting to wonder if Mr. Daniel should have some sort of consequence if he does not complete his 6 books for the quarter.  Student suggestions so far include: 1) Mr. Daniel must shave his beard.  2) Mr. Daniel must shave his head.  3)  Mr. Daniel must let wonderful students shave both head and beard.  and 4) Mr. Daniel should wear his wife's wedding dress to work.  We are still in the negotiating phase... 

My pirate book was not everything that I had hoped for as I lusted after it in the midst of my Shakespeare rendezvous.  I realized I just wanted some swashbuckling, rip roaring good pirate stories.  While there were some good tales, the author spent too much time trying to summarize and create generalities of all pirates.  So instead of looting, mutiny and rum party stories, there were more chapters like, "in general, here is what a typical pirate attack looked like", or "here is what the trials of most apprehended pirates amounted to."  Interesting enough but after recently reading Over the Edge of the World, and The Heart of the Sea I was left wanting a little more.  These two books were non-fiction stories that followed the same characters throughout the length of the book and they were absolute page turners.  Historical thrillers if you will.  It's not fair that Cordingly had to follow these two books nor his fault that his scope was more broad.  For better or worse it just fell flat, left me wanting a connection to these pirate characters the same way I did to Magellan and the Essex crew.

There were, however, some interesting tidbits and fun facts. 

Fun Fact #1: Did you know that the pirate with the parrot on his shoulder was rooted in historical fact?  A good deal of pirates preyed upon the Spanish vessels returning from the New World with gold, silver and yes, parrots (along with other exotic animals).  Several ships adopted the animals as a kind of ship mascot.  Looks like Stevenson did his homework.

Fun Fact #2: Did you know France, Spain, and England all recruited sea men to loot and steal from each other?  These "privateers" thus began a suspect system with an extremely blurry line between pirate and patriot.  Periodically, there would be treaties and truces between these countries, but wait, we suddenly have a generation of seamen that have developed a taste for bounty and can't quite bring themselves to stop their pirating ways. 

Not So Fun and Disgusting Fact #3:  Please don't read any further if you are squeamish.  Seriously just move along to the conclusion.  Still with me?  Okay, can't help but share the most gruesome of all the pirate torture tactics.  After capturing a merchant ship captain, Pirate X wants to know exactly where the valuables are located. In order to obtain this information Pirate X slits open the stomach of the poor captain, pulls out his entrails and nails them to a post.  Pirate X then takes a shaft of hot metal and proceeds to brand the captain in the rear.  The captain avoid any and all rear brandings by running and jumping.  All the while, his evasive actions pull his entrails completely out and he kills himself.   Shiver me timbers.... moving on...

Overall, I think I had some unfair expectations of the book.  It wasn't awful but with so many amazing books out, there who wants to recommend an average book?

Anyway, dear readers, that is all for now.  I'm attempting shorter books for my last three of the quarter.  I have HG Wells', The Island of Dr. Moreau, up to bat and Jack London's Call of the Wild/White Fang on deck.  I'm looking for a short but high quality biography.  Any suggestions? 

Preferably under 200 pages. ;)

Thanks for reading,

-td