The below thread about Moby Dick got me thinking of all the excellent maritime books which exist, be they fiction or non. Here is an incomplete list:
- Two Years Before the Mast - Richard Henry Dana
- The Sea Wolf - Jack London
- Endurance - Alfred Lansing
- Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
- The Perfect Storm - Sebastian Junger
- The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
And lastly, for all us GPS users, an excellent book about longitude and the struggle to precisely measure ones longitude in the 18th century:
- Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time - Dava Sobel
The Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
"South" by Ernest Shackleton
"The Elements of Seamanship" by Roger C. Taylor
"Far Tortuga" by Peter Matthiesen
The Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester.
Eight Sailing/Mountain-Exploration Books
Harold William "Bill" Tilman
The don't make guys like Bill Tilman anymore
>
> The don't make guys like Bill Tilman anymore
Well, not to disagree, but they made me.
The only reason I have never been dropped behind enemy lines is because I have no enemies.
Don
Besides being an explorer , this writer is a myth investigator also.
I really got hooked on him after reading the "The Jaaon Voyage".
Mutiny on the Bounty
Men Against the Sea
Pitcairn’s Island
(the Bounty Trilogy)
by Charles Nordhoff and Colfax, Iowa native James Norman Hall
Blind Man's Bluff
Iron Coffins
Kon Tiki
Cool!... these are all great books...
As a kid I was always attracted to the extreme adversity of the sea as well with such books as
John Fairfax was my hero...
Steve Callahan, bad ass...
classic...
so many others...
Have to add: Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World." Slocum was the first to sail around the world solo. An interesting read, about another time.
KS
Thank you Ken! That is "the" classic...
"Kon Tiki" Being The Most Boring On The List
Thor Heyerdahl uses lots of words to say very little.
Having read many of those mentioned, this I read in my reading prime as a youth. Not to admit to being a glutton for punishment I also read Heyerdahl's equally long "Aku Aku".
I do not recall seeing mention of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea."
Paul in PA
The Last Navigator
by Steve Thomas formerly from "this old House" amazing navigation stuff!
I've read so many books I can no longer remember half of them, but here are a few I did:
* Abandon Ship! : The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy's Greatest Sea Disaster by Richard F. Newcomb
* Fastnet, Force 10: The Deadliest Storm in the History of Modern Sailing
* Pirate Latitudes: Jamaica in 1665 is a rough outpost of the English crown, a minor colony holding out against the vast supremacy of the Spanish empire. Port Royal, Jamaica?s capital, a cut-throat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses, is devoid of London?s luxuries; life here can end swiftly with dysentery or a dagger in your back. by Michael Crichton
* Godforsaken Sea: The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters by Derek Lundy
Y'all have a great week!
The Grey Seas Under - Farley Mowat
One of my favorites:
The Grey Seas Under is one of the few nonfiction books to detail the adventures of a salvage tug and its crews. It was inspired when Mowat heard tales about the legendary tug while his schooner moored beside a later Foundation Maritime tug during the 1950s.
also
I recommend "The General" and "The African Queen" although they aren't maritime stories. They are both authored by C.S. Forester.
Don't forget the original sea stories written by Captain Marryat.
Mr. Midshipman Easy is a good example (1836).
Marryat was a Royal Navy Captain from the Napoleonic period.
Of course the Aubrey-Maturin series beginning with Master and Commander. O'Brian is a stickler for detail.
