Richard Phillips was the captain of the Maersk Alabama when Somali pirates attempted to take over the ship. This is his personal account of what happened as he was taken hostage by the pirates and was eventually rescued by Navy Seals. It was international news so I’m not going to repeat the story here.

The book is good. Not great, just good. It was interesting to learn the details and better understand what Phillips went through. I appreciate the background information he gave – about himself and about shipping in particular. But it dragged at times, and Phillips seemed to demean the intelligence of his crew (or at least some of them). So I’m not surprised to see the CNN reports about the crew criticizing Phillips and questioning his account of the attempted hijacking.

Anyway, a good book worth reading, but only if you are interested.