 | |
List Price: $7.99 | | Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Salesrank: 331163
|
| Our Price: $2.15 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
|
| Media: Mass Market Paperback |
|
Editorial Review:
If Tully Mars had known what he was getting himself into when he agreed to help find the lost lens belonging to the lighthouse on Cayo Loco-well, he might never have agreed to help in the first place. Then again, maybe he simply would have taken a slightly longer nap before setting off on his wild adventure. And it isn't just Tully-whom Buffett fans will remember well from Jimmy's bestselling Tales from Margaritaville-on the madcap quest. There's Ix-Nay, an Indian shaman with a dislike of the media; Mr. Twain, Tully's loyal steed; Cleopatra Highbourne, the 102-year-old owner of Cayo Loco and Cuban baseball addict; Captain Kirk, fishing trip leader and boatman extraordinaire; former country music star Sean Spurl, aka Tex Sex; Bucky Norman, a Wyoming cowboy who has found his way to the ocean; and even a fellow named Jimmy Buffett, who decides he might as well join in on the party. Raucous, wise, and familiar with the world's wonderful strangeness, A SALTY PIECE OF LAND is the perfect summertime confection.
A Salty Piece of Land Reviews:
One of the most pleasurable reads 
2008-09-07 - This was one of the most pleasurable reads for me, and I read about a book per week, so that's saying a lot. Maybe it's because it combines my own loves of flying, sailing, and adventure. The character is pretty much Jimmy himself in a fictional tale. I'm reading it again (something I seldom do) right now and am enjoying it just as much.
A Salty Piece of S**T 
2008-08-04 - Oh man. Where do I start? I bought this book for two bucks at a moving sale. I'd like to get my money back but the homeowner has moved. I've got a team of private investigators trying to find him for me. Two bucks is two bucks. If you're looking for a way to kill some time, stare at your feet, go out and watch the grass grow or find somewhere to watch paint dry. Do anything but read this book. I love Buffet's music. Have for years. Can he write? Yes he can. Can he build a cohesive, believable story? Nuh uh. No way. I'm sorry to say this but I think that a special education ten-year-old on a margarita binge could do a better job of that. Before reading this book you don't just need to suspend your disbelief. You need to have it hacked right out of your brain with a scalpel. Or maybe a chain saw. At one point in the "story" one of the characters writes a letter. The letter, printed in its entirety, spans more than fifty pages. I don't know about you but I haven't received, or written, a lot of fifty-plus page letters. I have never come so close, so many times, to closing a book permanently before finishing it. A guy in the book sleeps with a girl in the book. Once. She departs. He immediately makes her the beneficiary of his estate and he dies within days. She builds a boat and becomes instantly proficient enough at sailing to sail around the world. Yeah, like that happens every other day. I could give examples like this until the cows came home but there's some fresh paint next door that I'd really like to go and watch dry. Sorry, Mr. Buffet. Love the music, hated the book. My time spent reading the book was wasted away (again in Margarittaville). It was a salty piece of something, all right, but it sure wasn't land.
A Wake from the Light
2008-08-03 - Many years ago I was standing on a boardwalk in San Diego adjacent to an open air cantina. Sitting under a thatched umbrella was a party of fun enjoyers. They had multi-colored drinks topped with paper parasols and chunks of fruit. Here's what caught my attention: they were laughing; they were carrying on, they were zestfully loud; they were probably drunk. I was sober; and, as a non-drinker, always had been. But in my youthful interpretation of their revelry, I vowed to become a drinker by my middle years. I wanted to be those guys. I wanted to sit with a bunch of buddies and swap great stories. I wanted to laugh, DAGNABIT! Well exactly one Bartles & Jaymes and one headache and absolutely no feeling good later, my grand drinking schemes self-liquidated. What a light weight I am! And that was a few years back, then. Fast forward to now - my dream has been realized. Reading Buffet's (Jimmy, not Warren) book [no drinking involved] was my great vacation get away at that cantina swapping fun stories with endearing party people. No raging gun battles, no kung-fu action, no car chases, no defusing detonations... just a casual tale that tickles your reading fancy like a gentle off shore Carribean breeze.
I don't really buy (nor steal) music. I'm not much of a listener (I'm sorry, what did you just say?). But I liked this Buffet book so much, I ran out and bought two of his CD's. I plan to read his other books later (except for the one with a pig in it, just how good could that be?).
Light ahoy!
2008-07-24 - This book can be read on many levels: as a light humorous piece, as a passion play, as a piece with symbolism, or as a story in search of a philosophy. I like the first best.
The core of the story is the renovation of a lighthouse, not an exciting topic. It only becomes exciting through the characters...or maybe the power of coincidence...or maybe the power of goodness.
This book has something for everybody, from a doofus to an intellectual college professor. Take it as you like. It's a joy.
Fans: read with "Pirate looks at 40" in the background. 
2008-07-15 - Includes free CD with new Jimmy Buffett single. The song isn't much--a slight musical summary of the novel.
The novel is good, short of greatness by a 50-pages-long momentum-killing letter in the middle about a cargo cult in the South Pacific. Yes, it ties in to the story, but isn't very interesting.
Salty is a continuation of the life of Tully Mars, the Wyoming cowboy who took his pony to the shore to escape a former employer whom he left under less than good terms. He meanders through the Carribean moving from shore to sea to air to island to lighthouse.
As in his songs, Jimmy has such a way of painting a style and a mood that makes you feel a specific but non-existent place that you wish you could find but never will. A Pirate looks at 40? Yeah, I'm the farthest thing from that, but I'll sing it at full volume in the car anyway, and wish I was that mythical person in that mythical place. Its why people love Buffett. If you do, read this; if not, it's a coin toss.
Buffett's latest: Swine Not?: A Novel.
Buffett's best: Tales from Margaritaville
