Starred Review. Bestselling author Kurlansky (Cod; The Big Oyster) provides a delightful, intimate history and contemporary portrait of the quintessential northeastern coastal fishing town: Gloucester, Mass., on Cape Anne. Illustrated with his own beautifully executed drawings, Kurlansky's book vividly depicts the contemporary tension between the traditional fishing trade and modern commerce, which in Gloucester means beach-going tourists. One year ago, a beach preservation group enraged fishermen by seeking to harvest 105 acres of prime fishing ground for sand to deposit on the shoreline. Wealthy yacht owners compete with fishermen for prime dockage, driving up prices. Fishermen also contend with federal limits on their catches in an effort to maintain sustainable fisheries. But while cod are protected from extinction, the fishermen are not. Some boats must go 100 or more miles out to sea a danger for small boats with few crew members. Tragedies abound, while one, that of the swordfish boat Andrea Gail, documented by Sebastian Junger in A Perfect Storm, brought even more tourists to Gloucester. (June 3) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Starred Review. Kurlansky's 1997 best seller, Cod, was subtitled A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. His latest work can also be described as a biography, this time of the fishing town of Gloucester, MA. Although Gloucester is unique, its history serves as an exemplar of the changing nature of commercial fishing in the North Atlantic, especially regarding people, equipment, and target species. It also serves as a means of examining the problems of modern fishing towns as they try to find new ways of surviving in a world of collapsing fish populations without losing the best of their heritage. Kurlansky is a skillful writer, holding readers' interest and educating them at the same time with his mixture of facts, anecdotes, and even recipes. All of us, not just those living on the coast, should be aware of the issues he raises here. An excellent complement to the author's Cod and Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell as well as to Eric Jay Dolan's Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America; highly recommended for all public, high school, and college libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/08; library marketing campaign planned. Ed.] Margaret Rioux, MBL/WHOI Lib., Woods Hole, MA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

*Starred Review* In the book's introduction, Kurlansky upends an old adage: "If you give a man a fish, you feed him. If you teach a man to fish, he will starve." That succinctly encapsulates natives' assessment of the future of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Once flourishing as New England's first and finest fishery, it finds itself now depressed from depletion of the North Atlantic's cod stocks thanks to international competition and modern technologies that have spawned overfishing. Gloucester's history stretches back to the Puritan colonies. Successive waves of European immigrants have added layer after layer to the town's unique ethnic heritage. Kurlansky documents this evolution in a series of recipes scattered throughout the text. Many fear for the port's future, but seasoned Gloucestermen have witnessed many ebbs and flows in the town's fortunes. Kurlansky's lucid history of fishing and fishing vessels holds the reader's attention as much as his encounters with deeply conflicted townsfolk. Includes a classified bibliography of printed and oral sources. Knoblauch, Mark. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Prologue: Pole Walkers	xv
Chapter 1 The First Gloucester Story	3
Chapter 2 A Tale of Woe	19
Chapter 3 The Island Named Gloucester	29
Chapter 4 Scooning	35
Chapter 5 The Replacements	60
Chapter 6 Among the Rocks	90
Chapter 7 This Gloire of Gloucester	106
Chapter 8 While Gloucester Burns	124
Chapter 9 The Fish Is in Us	141
Chapter 10 The Sea and the Seaside	172
Chapter 11 Surviving on the Mainland	219
Bibliography	247
Acknowledgments	255
Index	257

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.