Ship Fever

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Summary: Literature for the love of science
Review: Andrea Barret has to be a genius. The eight stories are laced together with fascinating science and solid historical fact but each takes off in entirely different directions in her fabulous imagination. She is a gifted storyteller, there is plenty of suspense to keep the reader turning the page. Yet, there is the learning and wisom that only a true genius, a born writer, can impart.

I flipped through the book with a group of friends and read aloud the opening sentence to a few of the stories. The stories are captivating from the first line.

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Summary: Riveting, Imaginative Tales About Science and Medicine
Review: Andrea Barrett's "Ship Fever" is among the finest short story collections I've come across. She writes beautiful, elegant tales which are spendid descriptions of the human dimensions of science and medicine. Here she portrays such noted figures of science as botanist Linnaeus and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace as poignant, sympathetic figures. Brilliantly, she shows science as a meaningful human endeavor, that is as riveting for the humanity of its participants as well as its noted discoveries. Undoubtedly, the most elegantly written tale is the title story, which describes Canada's response to the Irish Famine of the 1840's as successive waves of diseased, poverty stricken Irish emigrants arrived. Without a doubt, Andrea Barrett is one of our finest writers in the English language, blessed with much intelligence and graceful, poetic prose.

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Summary: Pick this book up and you won't be able to put it down.
Review: I was initially drawn to this book by its cover. Upon further examination, I found the various story names very intriguing and decided that this book was worth a try. I have not read anything as thought provoking and so well written in a very long time. Andrea Barrett has skillfully woven historical facts regarding famous scientists, such as Linnaeus, with modern day subjects and characters which brings the stories to life with a truly refreshing richness and sense of credibility. It is filled with lucid descriptions of both persons and places which adds to the joy of reading this compilation of stories. I highly recommend this book, I may not be Oprah, but I am an avid reader and this book is a true treasure. I cannot wait for the publication of her next work. If you have vowed to read more in this New Year, then pick up Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever. Everything else you read after Ship Fever will have a hard time surpassing its brilliance! The old adage of do not judge a book by its cover does not apply here...it is beautiful to behold with the eye and in the hand. It is a modern day masterpiece

Rating:
Summary: Literature for the love of science
Review: It seems to me that the style of these short stories are indicative of the approach that natural scientists take to their work. It is patient and reflective. It doesn't force its subject into action. It observes the truth. I personally never had the patience to be a scientist, but I understand and respect the scientific mind. I read this book a little at a time (which I think is the proper way to read short stories). Even the tragic stories, such as the title story Ship Fever, left me with a sense that I had shared the characters experience in an oddly detached way. I can only compare it to reading an ancestor's personal diary, feeling that by being related to the person I somehow was affected by it all. So my recommendation is that if you enjoy science as well as literature and you take the time to absorb the stories rather than cram them, you will enjoy this collection.

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Summary: A rare treasure, a wonderful writer...
Review: This collection of short stories is amazing if not for the wonderful writing, for the subject matter and themes of the tales. All of the tales are set in the 1800s and involve what one reviewer aptly calls, "the great explorers of mind and geography." Barrett blends together real and fictional historical scientific characters in stories that examine the hearts and minds of the scientists in the last century. In These stories we inspect the genetic gardens and life of Gregor Mendel as experienced by the man who was a boy in those gardens, feel the frustrations of a young man from Philadelphia named Alec who spends his life in the jungles of the Amazon and the Pacific Islands collecting rare insects, birds, and other fauna, a couple of marine biologists who fall in love during a seminar and leave their respective long-established families to marry, and more. The last tale, the most powerful, is about a doctor who works on Grosse Island in Canada, the receiving point for boatloads of Irish immigrants fleeing famine in Ireland, and bringing horrible typhoid fever in sickening and deadly droves. There are thousands of books written about the hearts and emotions of the poets, philosophers, and politicians of the nineteenth century. To have a glimpse, even an imaginary one, of the scientists' as well, well, this collection is a rare treat.

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Summary: A great blend of fact and fiction
Review: This is a collection of short(ish) stories, all based on natural history; some historical (the death of Linneaus) some in modern settings. Like any collection, some stories work better than others - my favourites were some of the historical stories - a woman who disputes the accepted theory that swallows hibernate under water during winter; and a story about a man searching the exotic faraway for new species to make him rich, yet learning much about himself in the process. All have interesting characters and subtly explored themes - the better stories have the themes woven in seamlessly.

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Summary: One of the Best Collections of Short Stories I've Read
Review: To compare biology and the study of natural science with lawyers is an oxymoron. To compare Andrea Barrett's prose to John Grisham's mediocrity is an insult to Barrett's amazing collection, "Ship Fever." What Nadia Boulanger said of Igor Stravinsky's work can be applied most succintly to this book; great music (art, literature)... "satisfies the intellect, while at the same time, touches the heart." Unlike certain writers who reference genus, subgenus, and species in pointless pretense (or physics, ex. Jeanette Winterson in "Gut Symmetries"), Barrett's stories have points to them, not political, or, ironically, scientific, but human.

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Summary: science-lovers only....
Review: ugh. as a confessed bibliophile, i honestly try to give every single book its due. but this one was impossible...poetic, but impossible. barrett attempts to weave these stories about antiquated botanists into one connective tissue but it is too far a stretch. unless you eat, breath and sleep xylem and phloem, don't waste time trying to pad through this book.

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Summary: Upsetting
Review: Well, i am with the person from Watertown. This book was a required read (god knows why) it is completely uneventful. A collection of stories that lack a point. The Ship FEver story is okay, but not worth the read unless you are interested in this time period.