THE PENGUIN BOOK OF PIRATES

Three centuries of cutthroats, blackguards, and assorted sea swine, women as well as men, set sail again in this audiobook anthology of history's most infamous and dastardly pirates. Editor Katherine Howe introduces each chapter, and her more than three dozen one-chapter biographies are divided among three narrators, each taking a century. Most effective is Matthew Lloyd Davies, who covers the seventeenth century. The biographies are compiled from mostly contemporary documents, and Davies's finely polished delivery of their archaic language and formalized rhetoric is central to the spell these tales cast. After Howe provides framing and grounding, Davis delivers the full atmosphere of romance and high adventure, and the underlying sense of wonder and dread unique to tales of piracy. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2024]