This is a humorous and entertaining travelogue relating the adventures of the author and his slacker friend as they globe hop on the trail of Captain James Cook.

The narrative switches rhythmically between the voyages of Cook himself, and the modern social and environmental realities of the places Cook visited during his three famous expeditions over 200 years ago.

The book is full of contrasts and irony. Consider the modern islanders of Niue (pronounce new-ay). The author arrives via the once-weekly airline flight to find a very small nation of well-fed, extremely pious Christian Polynesians who's economy is based on maintaining a large percentage of world's 1-900 number infrastructure and selling rights to web domains that end in .nu; the Niuen national internet extension and French for nude.

I didn't know anything about Cook before reading the book. My wife bought it for me as a holiday gift because it had a picture of a ship on the cover. I received a double education in the life and accomplishments of Cook, and in modern world cultures.

My wife read it after me and we agreed it was one of those books that are hard to put down.