Too much info before sailing of Mayflower
584803
I would have liked more information on the mayflower crossing the Atlantic and Portsmouth than on all the kings and queens.
good research on kings and queens.
4709581
Richard Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" is my favorite book, and I have often chosen books to read about sailing in the 1800s.  So when I saw I could get another book by Dana I jumped at it.  However, since my sailing has been mostly fresh water lake and a little SF Bay day sailing, the minutia of the different parts of a big tall ship was too much for me.

This book is better suited to someone who actually sails on tall ships, or who is a serious naval history buff.  (I thought I was, but this was too much arcane detail for me.)

My fault...just what did I expect!
3369787
There was a lot of 'good stuff' included (often too much of one subject), but more topics needed.  For instance, I never realized that some people required 48 different life insurance policies and no mention of a trustee in any of them. There was no mention of CD's in the "Securities" section.
I had expected additional subjects to be included such as living wills, donation of organs, desires of the deceased concerning burial/cremation, where to find certain papers (receipts, past years' tax forms, important keys).
I'll use certain information it provided and seek other information elsewhere.
I feel that the author "missed the boat" on producing a super book and settled on an average production by leaving out much needed information that "My Family Should Know".
2809215
Only a little of this book is about the actual voyage of the Mayflower, about which little recorded description survives. Nonetheless the book gives interesting accounts of the origins of the Mayflower passengers, and their fate after landing in the new world, subjects with which most of us are not familiar.
1103248
My only complaint about this book is that it presented too much information too fast, and I therefore found it confusing.  But I was probably reading it too fast, and not reading the accompanying Bible passages due to time constraints.
875773
There are to many pages of to much description of the characters and what they wore for cloths etc.etc.etc. I finally got a little interested after I was half way through the book.
2496018
John Vigor's "Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Sailing" is a relatively short book full of tidbit of sailing knowledge.  It is arranged alphabetically by subject with short entries.  Some are humorous, some are serious, and some are much more useful than others.

So why only two stars?  After seeing John Vigor's "The Practical Mariner's Book of Knowledge" listed as a source and purchasing that book, I found out that many of the entries in this book were copied verbatim from Vigor's earlier book.
1411404
I enjoyed the story and characters but the author went into WAY too much details about the history and problems in the middle east.  I understand it's a critical part of the story, but it was way too much.  I found myself skipping over sections.
793405
Excellent book, but too much information in each chapter. thanks, Dennis porter. P.S. Kudos to the shipping company for prompt delivery
4115434
there is a lot of information here.
The style is a little cutesy but there is a lot of meat there.
A lot to learn and impossible to remember it all. So it is a companion.
1838514
Nice Summary and Some Real Good Tips in this book but really has a lot of repeated information throughout in each chapter, especially when describing the various cabins. I understand they have the same features but could be more creative in writing rather than copying and pasting the descriptions. Overall, the book was very useful and worth the price but I just have this one complaint about it as stated above. It seems to happen a lot these days as I have seen many other cruise ship books the same way.
3405906
This book presents changes in the Americas (mostly) that occurred after Columbus's discovery of 1492 (neglecting for the moment the matter of earlier discoveries). Those changes, characterized by another author as "The Columbian Exchange," are quite interesting as presented by Mann in broad brushstrokes. The cultural and economic dynamics of the slave trade and botanical exchanges (most food products) provide perspectives not mentioned in typical accounts of American history.
Unfortunately, the author gets bogged down in the second half of this book as he dwells on minutiae of individuals and specific cities. The author, a journalist, apparently could not resist sharing everything he learned from historians, when I would have preferred that he stuck to the Big Picture.
Still, I intend to read his companion book, 1491, which reportedly describes America as it existed before The Columbian Exchange. I will watch for the point in that book when the author shifts into an excess of detail, and put it down.
1653877
The book is beautiflly written but has too much detail on the every-day life of the author - information that might be interesting only to his family and friends.
103333
I think there are to much reading before you get to read what you bought the book to learn in the first place.
1022775
A very excltlng read, but a lot charactes to keep track of.
3418371
The book is excellent, very detailed and useful.  Unfortunately, being chock full of detail made it very heavy and I began to regret that weight during the trip, which is why I gave it 3 stars.  If you want to read it before you go, it can't be beat.
1218098
This is a good book if you are interested in sailing on a budget and ultra shoal draft sailing.  He gives some very interesting tips and perspectives on coastal sailing in a small boat.  However, if you are not keenly interested in the Thames estuary and all the minutia of navigating it, (every creek, every buoy, every sand bank)  you may save shelf space by tearing out the entire second half of the book.