Howdy hey!
I am really, really into boats!
I am looking for anyone who could possibly recommend me books on nautical history or nautical culture/sailing culture. It seems like there aren't too many books being written on these topics, which is SO frustrating for me! Most nautical history books are about shipwrecks, doomed voyages, stranded sailors, or pirates… which is not really what I'm looking for.
Mainly I am really interested in the day-to-day life of sailors and fishermen/whalers from the late 18th century all the way through the 1960s or so.
Specific topic of interests: general Age of Sail, Northwest Passage/Arctic-Canadian exploration, Canadian maritime culture/nautical culture, Irish maritime culture/nautical culture, British maritime culture/nautical culture, the grimy fisherman/grizzled sailor aesthetic a la Captain Quint from Jaws … yeah I could go on for a while lol.
Anyone have ANYTHING?
Will take: Fiction, Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Biography, Poetry, Horror .. just needs to have somewhat accurate nautical history blended in there!
(Have already read: Jaws, Moby Dick, Aubrey-Maturin series, The Terror (honestly most books on the Franklin expedition . . .) etc etc).
by bratbats
11 Comments
Two Years Before the Mast
The Wager
Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World.
Trading Fate by Graeme Menzies
*Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus* by Samuel Eliot Morison.
*The Armada* by Garrett Mattingly.
*The Galleys of Lepanto* by Jack Beeching.
*In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex* [1820] by Nathaniel Philbrick.
*Two Years Before the Mast* by Richard Henry Dana Jr.
*Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War* by Robert K. Massie.
*Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea* by Robert K. Massie.
*The Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War* by Jonathan Dimbleby.
*Corvette Command* by Nicholas Montsarrat.
*H. M. Corvette* by Nicholas Montsarrat.
*East Coast Corvette* by Nicholas Monsarrat.
*The Cruel Sea* by Nicholas Monsarrat (fiction).
*The Laughing Cow: A U-boat Captain’s Story* by Jost Metzler.
*Japanese Destroyer Captain* by Tameichi Hara, Fred Saito and Roger Pineau.
*Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway* by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully.
*Hell from the Heavens: The Epic Story of the USS Laffey and World War II’s Greatest Kamikaze Attack* by John Wukovits.
*The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour* by James D. Hornfischer.
*Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before* by Tony Horwitz. FWIW, I don’t like the author on a personal level. He’s a pompous *ss who imagines it’s funny to lampoon others in his books. In this instance, he constantly ridicules an Australian he has ~befriended~. When he’s not doing that, however, his book is about Cook’s voyage, sailing ships, and sailing, and it’s interesting.
The Wide Wide Sea https://share.google/wE5eLF112wDeDYnFn
This one is excellent.
Eric Newby *The Last Grain Race*. The ‘Grain Race’ was the name for the windjammer sailing season between Australia’s grain depots and Cornwall, UK. Newby shipped aboard the *Moshulu* for the last really serious season in 1939 and wrote about his experience a couple decades later.
Also, I second the rec for *Two Years Before the Mast*
Endurance has some of what you’re looking for.
How about oceangoing tugs? The Grey Seas Under by Mowat
Fiction: Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brien ; Rough Passage to London by Robin Lloyd; The Sea-Wolf by Jack London.
Nonfiction: To Rule the Waves by Arthur Herman; The Heart of the Sea (yes, about a shipwreck, but it really goes into great detail about whaling and sailing.); Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton; Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick; The Wager by David Grann.
Not sure if it would fit what you were looking for, but Ahab’s Rolling Sea by Richard J King was a very interesting read. (NF)
I haven’t read this yet, but it’s on my list to read: Scurvy by Stephen R Brown. (NF)
A Voyage for Madmen, by Peter Nichols, following the nine men attempting to be the first to complete a non-stop solo round-the-world sailing journey. Nichols isn’t necessarily a great writer, but he’s an experienced captain so definitely understands the technical details. (Even though the race happened in 1968, it’s incredible how little technology they had to work with.) And the stories of each individual sailor are variously impressive, inspiring, harrowing, and tragic.
I’ve also been meaning to read The Long Way, the first-person account of the race by Bernard Moitessier, who didn’t actually get to the finish line but just kept sailing!