Non-fiction Friday

   I finished Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate Ship, one of the books I recommended last week. It made my pirate-y little soul very happy. To the casual reader, a book about finding a pirate ship is probably not a big deal; they find old shipwrecks all the time, right?  Well yes, they do, and some of them have millions of dollars worth of treasure that the finder probably won't get to keep.  BUT (strong emphasis on the but) finding a pirate shipwreck is much rarer. The only one that's ever been found is the Whydah in 1984, with a nice haul of treasure to go with it. The Golden Fleece, which is the subject of Pirate Hunters, makes the second.  (Yes, they think they've found Blackbeard's ship off of North Carolina; unfortunately, they can't prove it yet.)  Sadly for the treasure hunters, the Golden Fleece did not have a huge stash of treasure in its hold.  Regardless it's still a once in a lifetime find; I can only imagine the thrill of finding such a rare piece of history!
   I was going to do some more recommendations, but the only thing I've been looking at recently is more pirate non-fiction.  So in the interest of not boring you guys to death, I'll refrain from posting them all here.  I will tell you one book I don't recommend, which is Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed, written by Patricia Cornwell. I take issue with anyone arrogant enough to think they can solve a centuries-old criminal case. Most especially when they claim to do so in the title of the book and then fail to deliver. Her book is poorly researched with little solid evidence and she seems bent on accusing her suspect, Walter Sickert, solely because she finds his paintings disturbing.  I took a lot of art classes in college and found some of the paintings distasteful.  But it never occurred to me to accuse the painters of being Jack the Ripper.  Hey, maybe it would've gotten me out of some homework! (And perhaps thrown out of class.)  Oh well.  Well, what books have you guys read lately that you really enjoyed?  Or hated? Let me know!!

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