Breverton's Nautical Curiosities: A Book Of The Sea

What a cool book! Who ever thought to write a neat compilation of Nautical facts, trivia of historical nature, and tales, was very clever! I have a father who is exceptionally hard to shop-for-a gift-for! He seems to have EVERYTHING that he wants, ALREADY! Well, when I asked him if he'd heard of this book, after I saw it, and he answered: "No", I KNEW I wanted to get it for him! He has a love of sailing and the boating the seas now that he is retired and, this NAILED IT ! Would recommend!

A great gift for the want to be sea dog. Bought it for my husband as a gift and he really enjoyed it. He's always wanted to be a salty old sea captain but he has horrible seasickness so this will have to satisfy his need for the sea.

This book is full of all kinds of obscure facts and tidbits from a maritime past that most people never realized influence us to this day. Mostly in our English language a lot of which we get from things used years ago on ships. Very easy to read a bit and put down without missing a beat.

This book is attractively bound and interesting to thumb through. However, I noticed some internal contradictions when reading it. There were also some stories and entries that didn't jive with what I have recalled reading elsewhere. Upon further research I found several entries that are merely folklore but do not appear to be grounded in any verifiable fact (e.g., the supposed origins of the word "posh" to be Port Out, Starboard Home). I usually have pretty good recall of obscure facts but I would not rely on any information I learned from this book unless I could verify it elsewhere. Admittedly, I may be taking it too seriously, but I expect a higher degree of veracity from a non-fiction book.

Outstanding book! I bought it because I’m in the Navy and the history is very rich, informative, and entertaining! Definitely recommend!!

Terry Breverton has a knack for organizing information and presenting it in interesting, easily digestible chunks. He begins in familiar waters: chapter headings include "An A-Z of Sea Slang," "Sea Conditions and Weather," "Life at Sea," "Death at Sea," "Heroes, Heroines, Sea People and Navigation," and "Villains of the Sea." Read through these sections and you'll learn a lot about types of ships, parts of a ship, a ship's food and medical care, naval weapons, famous captains and, of course, pirates. In "Islands, Ports, Harbours and Capes," Breverton explores the geography of seafaring.

In the final chapters, he casts his eyes a little deeper. "Animals of the Seas" and "The Ocean Environment" delve into biology and zoology, laying out for readers the many fascinating creatures that call the oceans home, as well as the environmental threats against them. Breverton makes a serious case for conservation, detailing the mass extinctions that are occurring even now and projecting what's likely to occur if we continue on our present course.

This is a darling of a book, easy to read at length or keep handy to browse piecemeal.

by Tom Knapp, the Rambles.NET guy

Great little coffee table book for our beach house. Interesting cover and lots of little factoids you can either pick up and skim or actually sit down and read through.

Not sure if its the accurate answer but the idea that irish step dancing might have originated from sailors was an interesting tidbit.

For the sailor who has everything - this has lots of fun items. Open any page and you can be sucked into something you didn’t know or need to know, but your glad you now know about nautical history, legend or terms you probably should be using but never do. Great book to have onboard (if you have a cabin), coffee table or on the shelf. I expect to pull out a few tidbits and ‘shock’ the older salty sailors in my life at some point!!

Very well laid out. Great for a quick read on occasion or to sit down for a longer period. Lots of fun information to enjoy and share.

This is basically a glossary of nautical terms, with one or two typos and a few inexplicable mentions of "political correctness" thrown in.