Birger Sjberg, born in 1953 in Stockholm, grew up in an overclass family with seven siblings. His father was a physician and ran a private practice for almost 30 years. Illness in the family and his father's drug addiction made the young man take on a lot of responsibility from early on.
His older brother's influence and his own longing for adventurous travels nudged him towards anything and everything sea-related, and eventually made him into a professional sailmaker.
Spending every summer of his childhood on an island by the Swedish west coast, where he would roam about in all kinds of floating vessels, only contributed to his romanticised view of adventure. His mother, a seamstress and a nurse, encouraged him to "go for it", to challenge himself and explore the world. At the age of 13 he worked as a farmhand in France, and at 17 he went to the US on the merchant ship M/S Rubens, initiating a chain of events that have been depicted in several of his books.
In the years that followed, he engaged in numerous challenges, yielding hard earned experiences on ships and boats. But, to quote the author himself: "They all turned out to be pretty great stories".
Tales from the Sea is a collection of true stories, from a time when arranged and scheduled travelling was not yet invented, that takes the reader on an armchair voyage through a world of adventures.