Customer Reviews

Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a kid in Marblehead, Mass. I liked to catch crabs off the rocks. When I grew up a bit, I learned to eat them too---a very succulent food that I still love. But, I must confess that I never thought of reading books about them until one day I ran across William Warner's BEAUTIFUL SWIMMERS in a college bookshop. This wonderful work contains all you ever wanted to know about the life cycle of one particular kind of crab that lives in Chesapeake Bay (the kind you probably smashed with mallets if you ever went to that area). Surprisingly, for most of its life, the Atlantic blue crab has nothing to do with beer. Taking it for a focus, Warner draws connections with the sea, the rivers, the crab-friendly environment that produced such a wealth of the creatures, and then the people who live from that wealth, the islanders who lived isolated for centuries, but are now firmly within the web of modern life. Warner tells of the marketing of crabs, the catching of other Chesapeake products like oysters, and even of festivals like a Miss Crustacean contest ! You can learn about esoterica like crab pots, the Waterman's Union, the religious heritage of crabbers, and lots more. My edition came with a number of excellent pencil drawings of crabs, crabbers, and maritime scenes from the area. I was disappointed by only one thing----reaching the end of this great book.

This book is a technical wonder of writing. The lyrical beauty of the prose gives it the flow and cadence of poetry but with the straightforward phrasing of journalism. It should be required reading for college literature majors everywhere. I was first exposed to Beautiful Swimmers when it showed up on my son's 9th grade English summer reading list. What a fortunate assignment for mom.

I am in awe of Mr. Warner's skill in crafting spare yet well-thought phrasing that carefully blends the unique local language with technical terminology. You read this book and forget that it is non-fiction, nature writing. It draws you in like a compelling fictional account. Therein lies the success of the book.

Beautiful Swimmers covers the crabbing industry and the impact of this lovely crustacean on the Bay and its economy - a worthy journalistic endeavor. But for me, the real beauty is in the joy of just reading this charming work.

I left my last copy of this book on an airline, where I was re-reading it for probably the tenth time, and am once more at this site to purchase a bunch more copies, for myself and as gifts to friends. This is a magnificent naturalist book, for anyone who has ever eaten a blue crab, caught one (they are smart and dumb at the same time, getting immersed in their eating the bait that they don't see your net, but brilliant escape artists the moment they focus on their peril), spent time anywhere along the Chesapeake, wondered about the lives of fishermen, or the cycles of the sea.

I have treasured this book that was a gift from my late grandmother who was a native of Norfolk, Virginia and lived along the Chesapeake Bay during her entire life. Beautiful Swimmers is one of the finest books in my library. I have both a hardbound and softcover copy. This book brings "The Bay" to life in a very rich and abundant way. Warner has accomplished a perspective that places you comfortably among the waterman and the life of the Chesapeake Bay. Having grown up in coastal Virginia, this book allowed me to gently return to my childhood and my times spent in pursuit of blue crabs to sell to neighbors for pocket money and for my family's dinner table. A fine read! I highly recommend this book.

I discovered this book on my brothers bookshelf while visiting the Eastern shore, and read it in two sittings. An absolutely fascinating book on the Bay, the Eastern shore, the blue crab and more. William W. Warner's gifted prose depicts the watermen and their life in a way that is both honest,sympathetic and informative. As a non-native Washingtonian, this book finally explains so many of the mysteries of the bay -- from soft shell crab and how/why they get that way --to Tangier Island and how/why it became so popular. It is the kind of book you immediately want to share with your friends... your family... your lunch bunch... the guy sitting next to you on the subway..

If you look at all the other reviews here, you'll notice that almost everyone raves about this book. And for good reason. I think Warner's book is one of the great although little known classics of nature writing. Despite Warner's winning the Pulitzer for it, it still doesn't seem to be that well known. Perhaps that has to do with the specific focus of the book, but there are few nature books that can match Warner's little classic for their informative as well as engaging and entertaining observations of nature. And he did this by writing about the eastern blue crab rather than something "sexier" or more sympathetic such as dolphins, whales, or some endangered bird.

In fact, I would say it is one of the 20th century's greatest works of popular science and nature writing. In this distinguished group of books (ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences) one would have to include such classics as Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring, Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters, Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape, Lincoln Barnett's The Universe and Dr. Einstein, Freud's The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Donald Culross Peattie's A Diary for Moderns, Lancelot Hogben's Mathematics for the Millions, Carl Zimmer's Parasite Rex, Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine, and so on. But I think Warner's book is the most readable and enjoyable by far of all these books, and yet is the least known.

I have a friend who keeps extra copies of the book around to give to other people to read, and that was the way I got introduced to the book. Warner's unpretentious but beautifully written book really captures the spirit and everyday life of the crab fishermen and other watermen of the Chesapeake Bay, one of the world's largest ecosystems just in terms of biomass. Because the coastline of the bay has so many inlets and smaller bays, it's actually several thousand miles long. Besides learning fascinating facts like these about the ecology, Warner's intimate portraits of the lives of the fishermen and watermen make you feel like you're right there with him in the boat as they go about their business.

As Warner points out, the bay is so productive of crabs, fish, oysters, and other marine life that just the blue crab catch outweighs that from the other southern states combined. Despite that, the crab and other fisheries were already in decline when Warner wrote this book, and one senses that he knew he was documenting what would soon be a bygone era of lone fisherman and watermen whose lifestyle had changed little in generations.

If you've missed this little gem and enjoy good nature writing, you are in for a rare experience, because this is a wonderful book.

An exquisite book that becomes more important with time as the baymen disappear & bay ecosystems continue to be pressured by overdevelopment. I've read this book a number of times, always with pleasure. It has helped me to understand & see Jersey's waters more clearly - Barnegat, Delaware, Raritan & Newark Bays, & all the mucky urban estuaries where the blue claws thrive again although they cannot be eaten. Yes, it is true that Jerseyans favor chicken over bunker. But Jersey crabs belong to the Crustacean Union & their contract stipulates chicken.

Bob Rixon, WFMU-FM

As a recovering 20th-century American lit major, regrettably my reading list (beyond Melville's classic and a certain Hemingway novella) lacked a certain maritime flavor in deference to social issues, the human experience, and anything that could somehow be interpreted as sublime or lead to a seriously insightful opium habit. Having said this, I encourage everyone to read William W. Warner's 'Beautiful Swimmers: Waterman, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay'. In terms of exploring the relationship between humanity and the sea, I have never read anything more eloquent. Its prose is refreshingly simple, but very engaging, with detailed sketches to enhance the authenticity. I've read several books twice, a handful three times. As of last night, 'Beautiful Swimmers' is the only one I've read for a fourth time. Many books (Moby Dick for example) merit more than a single reading mostly because they are too dense to "get" on a first run. It is the rare book that begs for multiple sittings simply because it's a joy to go back to the same words again and again. I'm a voracious reader, read my first novel (Jack London's 'Call of the Wild') when I was seven and have been buried in some book ever since; in my experience, 'Beautiful Swimmers' is one of about six or seven books that fit this "joy to read" category.

I love this book! After having spent all our summer vacations on the Eastern Shore for many years, I am always looking for a "fix" of the shore during our long Midwestern winters. This Pulitzer Prize-winning book was just what I needed. The author writes beautifully and sympathetically, but never condescendingly, of the watermen of the Chesapeake Bay and their continuing struggle to make a living from the sea as their fathers did.

Growing up in Northern Virginia I always had a vague sense of the crab's popularity, both for dining and as a sort of a local mascot for people who live near the Bay. However, I had only eaten them at my aunt's house in Benedict, MD. and thought them to be strange and hard to eat. They made me feel inferior some how not knowing the technique and how exactly my aunt was able to come up with these bushels during the warm summer months. I dedicated last summer to learning all about the Bay and the blue crab and the wonderful people who make a living off them. I was transformed with the knowledge from the book that explains so many details about the life of the crab, the watermen and their families. The author is so creative with the insights he reveals. After reading this book, I am equipped to speak intelligently about the geographical areas, crab industry and most importantly-how to get and eat these beautiful swimmers!