A review by pattydsf
The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea by Barbara Sjoholm
3.0
“With source materials do hard to obtain from the other side of the world, I decided that to really get a picture of women’s maritime lives in history and myth, it would be far easier to travel there myself than to keep requesting interlibrary loans. I wanted to see those same coastlines I was reading about, to sail those same seas.”
This reader will never know why Sjoholm and her publisher titled this book The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea. The title is misleading – there is only a little bit of information about Grace O’Malley. It is not enough, in my mind, to put O’Malley on the cover of the book although it attracts readers. Fortunately, I was interested in the whole topic of women and the sea rather than just O’Malley.
Once I realized that this book serves two purposes – to tell the tale of women’s maritime lives and to tell Sjoholm’s own travel stories, I enjoyed this book. It was not the best travelogue I have ever encountered, but not the worse either. Sjoholm is interested in her topic and went to great lengths to find out more about real and imaginary women sailors. The women that Sjoholm researches are interesting and I was glad to learn about them. The book is illustrated which is a nice touch.
If you have an interest in unusual travel plans or in women in unlikely jobs, you will probably find something in this book. If you are looking for just Grace O’Malley, you might do better with a novel like The pirate queen: the story of Grace O'Malley, Irish pirate by Alan Gold or Ann Moore’s Gracelin O’Malley. I haven’t read either, but they both look interesting.
This reader will never know why Sjoholm and her publisher titled this book The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea. The title is misleading – there is only a little bit of information about Grace O’Malley. It is not enough, in my mind, to put O’Malley on the cover of the book although it attracts readers. Fortunately, I was interested in the whole topic of women and the sea rather than just O’Malley.
Once I realized that this book serves two purposes – to tell the tale of women’s maritime lives and to tell Sjoholm’s own travel stories, I enjoyed this book. It was not the best travelogue I have ever encountered, but not the worse either. Sjoholm is interested in her topic and went to great lengths to find out more about real and imaginary women sailors. The women that Sjoholm researches are interesting and I was glad to learn about them. The book is illustrated which is a nice touch.
If you have an interest in unusual travel plans or in women in unlikely jobs, you will probably find something in this book. If you are looking for just Grace O’Malley, you might do better with a novel like The pirate queen: the story of Grace O'Malley, Irish pirate by Alan Gold or Ann Moore’s Gracelin O’Malley. I haven’t read either, but they both look interesting.