Author Description

You don't have to be a maritime history buff--or even a sailor--to find Lincoln Paine's Ships of the World fascinating. Certainly no scholar or student of the history of ships will want to be without it consists of more than 1,000 alphabetical entries describing individual ships' histories and fates. Yet because of the author's flair for language and the skill with which he has made his selections, the book is a browser's delight--almost a short-story collection. Look up an entry on any celebrated vessel--the Titanic, the Monitor, the Lusitania--and you'll find an admirably concise history of the boat and the events that made it famous. But browsing turns up countless unexpected pleasures, from the story of the Politician (a freighter that ran aground in the Outer Hebrides, where its cargo of Scotch was efficiently plundered by locals) to that of Jacques Cousteau's Calypso. The hundreds of well-chosen black-and-white illustrations help bring the tales alive.