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Summary and Reviews of A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett

A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett

A Pirate Looks at Fifty

by Jimmy Buffett
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • First Published:
  • Jul 1, 1998, 420 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 1999, 255 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Buffett brings us along on the remarkable journey which he took through the Southern hemisphere to celebrate this landmark birthday

For the millions of fans of Jimmy Buffett's music as well as his bestselling books, Tales From Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant?, here is the ultimate Jimmy Buffett philosophy on life and how to live it. As hard as it is to believe, the irrepressible Jimmy Buffett has hit the half-century mark and, in A Pirate Looks At 50, he brings us along on the remarkable journey which he took through the Southern hemisphere to celebrate this landmark birthday.
        
Jimmy takes us from the legendary pirate coves of the Florida Keys to the ruins of ancient Cartegena. Along the way, we hear a tale or two of how he got his start in New Orleans, how he discovered his passion for flying planes, and how he almost died in a watery crash in Nantucket harbor. We follow Jimmy to jungle outposts in Costa Rica and on a meandering trip down the Amazon, through hair-raising negotiations with gun-toting customs officials and a 3-year-old aspiring co-pilot. And he is the inimitable Jimmy Buffett through it all.
        
For Parrotheads, for armchair adventurers, and for anyone who appreciates a good yarn and a hearty laugh, here is the ultimate backstage pass -- you'll read the kind of stories Jimmy usually reserves for his closest friends and you'll see a wonderful, wacky life through eyes of the man who's lived it. A Pirate Looks At 50 is a breath of fresh air and a ingenious manual for getting to 50 . . . and beyond.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Entertainment Weekly - Beth Johnson
...[an] enthusiastic, rambling memoir.

Kirkus Reviews
This first nonfiction outing from singer/songwriter Buffett (Where Is Joe Merchant?, 1992, etc.) is more food for his Parrothead fans, but there is some fine writing along with the self-revelation. Half autobiography and half travelogue, this volume recounts a trip by Buffett and his family to the Caribbean over one Christmas holiday to celebrate the writer's 50th birthday. .... Both Parrotheads and those with a taste for the Caribbean find something for their palates here.

Publishers Weekly
The diaristic logbook that Buffett keeps along the way provides endless opportunities to muse on the music business; his older, wilder ways; navigation and, on the horizon, approaching mortality. Buffett's prose won't itself win him more "parrotheads" (as his fans are called), but those with enough patience or reverence to wade through long descriptions of beloved gear, favorite books or "fucking tikki pukki drinks" will find beneath these amblings a disarmingly direct character.

Library Journal
These intertwined, meandering recollections would make a nice column in the local paper, but as the memoirs of a creative talent they are deeply disappointing.

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