A Pirate Looks at Fifty - by Jimmy Buffett (Paperback)

About the Book

The #1 bestseller, now in trade paperback for the first time, is the ultimate backstage pass for Parrotheads and armchair adventurers. "Buffett is the literary version of the best barstool buddy you ever ran into".--"the Cleveland Plain Dealer".

Book Synopsis

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Jimmy Buffett offers his philosophy on life and how to live it, "like sitting with Buffett at a beachside bar, listening to him spin tales" (Time).

"Buffett took his family on a three-week trek around the Caribbean. . . . His colorful travelogue is interspersed with memoirs of his youth and music career--both of which revolve around his continuing search for the perfect fishing spot."--USA Today

For Parrotheads, armchair adventurers, and anyone who appreciates a good yarn and a hearty laugh, here is the ultimate backstage pass. You'll read the kind of stories Jimmy usually reserves for his closest friends and you'll see a wonderful, wacky life through the eyes of the man who's lived it.

Jimmy takes us from the legendary pirate coves of the Florida Keys to the ruins of ancient Cartegena. Along the way, we hear a tale or two of how he got his start in New Orleans, how he discovered his passion for flying planes, and how he almost died in a watery crash in Nantucket harbor. We follow Jimmy to jungle outposts in Costa Rica and on a meandering trip down the Amazon, through hair-raising negotiations with gun-toting customs officials and a three-year-old aspiring co-pilot. And he is the inimitable Jimmy Buffett through it all.

Review Quotes

Jimmy Buffett "has gregarious charm . . . and a bottomless well of stories to tell. . . . Reading A Pirate Looks at Fifty is like sitting with Buffett at a beachside bar, listening to him spin tales . . . discourse on life . . . and share nifty bits of geography and history."
--Time

"Fulfilling his peripatetic pirate lifestyle fantasies, rocker Jimmy Buffett took his family on a three-week trek around the Caribbean in celebration of his 50th. His colorful travelogue is interspersed with memoirs of his youth and music career--both of which revolve around his continuing search for the perfect fishing spot. But Buffett also imparts useful understandings gained from childhood through parenthood, and a valuable account of what it was like growing up in the '50s."
--USA Today

"The fun-loving Man from Margaritaville parses his hell-bent half-century."
--People

"Buffett takes the occasion of his fiftieth birthday to tell us about himself, and he does so with candor and modesty. The person who emerges is not the sort of rock star who trashes hotel rooms and slugs paparazzi, but a charming, decent, wry, kind, and contemplative man . . . . Buffett's evocation of the languid, louche Key West of the 1970's draws on the same well of affection as his best songs."
--The New York Times Book Review

"America's . . . good-time guy joins Hemingway, Dr. Seuss, and Steinbeck as one of the few who have topped both the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists."
--Rolling Stone

About the Author

Jimmy Buffett was a legend of popular culture as the composer of such classic songs as "Margaritaville," "Come Monday," and "Cheeseburger in Paradise." He recorded more than thirty albums, most of which went gold, platinum, or multiplatinum, and his sold-out concert tours were an annual rite of summer for his fans. In addition to his musical credits, Buffett is one of only seven authors with #1 New York Times bestsellers in both fiction (Where Is Joe Merchant?) and nonfiction (A Pirate Looks at Fifty). He had another New York Times bestseller with the short story collection Tales from Margaritaville. Jimmy Buffett died in 2023. In 2024, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Excellence category.