I accidentally read The Wager and Over the Edge of the World recently and I am really surprised how much I liked them. These are completely outside of my genre but now I want to give them a chance. Recommend me some non fiction seafaring books.
What I liked…
* Real stories about life on a ship
* Details from logs
* Info about life in general within that timeline
I don’t mind some discussion about changing morals, but not too much. I can make my own suppositions if I am given the real story. I don’t like historical fiction. I usually read nonfiction, biographies and sci-fi. This year my fave books were Debt the first 5000 years, King: A Life, All the Beauty in the World, American Sirens and The Black Count.
I’ve been diving into old world maps and learning how to use a sextant, so help me out with your best seafaring books. Any culture is fine, bonus points if you can recommend a book about Zheng He that’s not written for teens. TIA
by CWHats
6 Comments
• The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans by David Abulafia
• The Way of a Ship: A Square-Rigger Voyage in the Last Days of Sail by Derek Lundy
Read the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series.
The Mirror of the Sea is Joseph Conrad’s wonderful book about what life as a sailor means to him
Coastal sailing moreso than seafaring, but I enjoyed The Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchett.
THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger. AND THE SEA WILL TELL by Vincent Bugliosi.
the classic is two years before the mast by Richard Henry Dana. published in 1840.
old glory by Jonathan raban is about the time he commissioned 16-foot “raft” and rode it down the Mississippi in the wake of Huck Finn. Raban was a sailor but a Brit and a novice on the mississippi, so it’s got lots of sailorspeak. kind of layers his experience, with Huck’s trip, and the trips of several other real people who had also left their accounts.
passage to Juneau is also by him. it sort of parallels his trip from Seattle to Juneau, with captain George Vancouver’s.