Many years ago I read a daft little book called Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists. I remember it being funny but nothing more. Thinking back on the book I am sure it is because I didn't know enough about the things Defoe was poking fun at.
Fast forward about a decade and the wonderful Aardman Animation studios release The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists which was brilliant. From the opening to the end of the credits I think it was one of the best films I've seen in ages and for me it was better than the last couple of Pixar movies - heresy I know!
Since then I've use the library to borrow the book where the Pirates meet Moby Dick and have the one about the Communists on reserve. When I saw that the brand new book The Pirates! An Adventure with the Romantics available on Net Galley I knew that I had to request it.
This past weekend I developed a horrible summer cold and The Pirates! were just what the doctor would have ordered I am sure.
The Pirate Captain and his band of inept pirates are sailing on Lake Geneva once more in financial straights. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin are in the vicinity and bored. Cue the start of the adventure.
I don't think that there was a chapter that didn't raise a snigger and I think that Mr Norfolkbookworm was ready to throw me to the sharks as I kept reading snippets out to him. Any book that rates the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford over the Ashmolean is always going to be a favourite with me.
As with the other Pirates! books some knowledge of the bit of history/literature that Defoe is lampooning makes the books far more enjoyable but I hope there are more books and more films!
I've got a free copy that came with the Grauniad a while back. It keeps slipping down the to-read list but maybe this will bump it up a bit again!
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