Pirates, we all know, are loud, dirty, bare-chested men armed to the teeth with cutlasses and knives. Not so, says history. There are many examples of women who took to the life of piracy like ducks take to water. These ladies had to keep their shirts on, but otherwise the aforementioned description more than holds up. Booty, with its tongue-in-cheek tone and its charming illustrations, is a unique look at these unusual pirates. How did Mary Read and Anne Bonny stay disguised as pirate men for so long? How did beautiful Cheng I Sao manage to keep an entire fleet of two thousand ships and eighty thousand pirates under her thumb? Did Sadie the Goat really get in a brawl with a barkeep who kept the severed ears of her victims in a pickle jar? Booty proves that the challenges of a life of crime at sea were fraught with a whole new set of dangers if you would otherwise be wearing a petticoat and bonnet. The lively, colorful images and vivid descriptions spruce up the tales of pillage, plunder, and derring-do to make this mini-history as delightful as its subjects are despicable.

posted Feb 26, 2010 at 2:59PM

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