Calvin D. Evans

You should never judge a book by its cover. And, in this case, you shouldn't even judge it by the fact that it looks like a book.

This is not a book -- not really. It's a database that, unfortunately, has been printed out, so you can't search it or sort it. You just have to look through it until you find what you're looking for. Fortunately, there is an index. Unfortunately, it probably isn't the index you want.

So: What the book is is a list, in geographical order working around the Newfoundland coast, of shipbuilders and the ships they built. The index covers the shipbuilders but not the ships. So if you want to look up, say, Joseph Gulliford of Hant's Harbour, you can determine that Hant's Harbour is on Trinity Bay and look through the shipbuilders of that inlet, or you can look him up in the index and find him on page 125. There you will find a list of a dozen or so ships he build, such as the "122-ton Miriam in 1875."

If, on the other hand, you know there was a ship Miriam in the 1870s, and wanted to know who built her, you're out of luck unless you plow through the whole tome. As for what the Miriam did with her 122 tons, you're out of luck, period, because it's not in here.

It's hard to rate a book like this. I have no way of testing its accuracy, though I have no reason to question it. Even for someone as fascinated by lists as I am (I'm autistic; I love catalogs), it is incredibly dull -- just a list of builders and ships, with sometimes a few details about the builder's history, but no personal interest whatsoever. And no stories about the ships, which were what I wanted to learn. If you want to read about the ships made by hundreds of shipbuilders (e.g. if you're a relative of a shipbuilding family), go ahead, get it. Otherwise, you might be tempted try to use it to caulk a seam or two....… (altro)