July 2018 - Nautical reads

Hey, folks, I guess it's about time to get this thread started. I'm having trouble posting pictures on my tablet, but I'm going to at least get started listing some books for you to be thinking about. I can always make it pretty later.

(Gotta be honest, though, I probably won't. Hope that's OK too.)

Theme: Nautical reads. Anything about Navy, sailing, pirates, shipping, etc. If it has a boat somewhere featured prominently in the book, it floats. 😉

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Fiction

Master and Commander series by Patrick O'Brian
Horatio Hornblower by C S Forested
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
The Heart of Darkness or others by Joseph Conrad
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
The Life of Pi by Yang Mattel
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
Bloody Jack by LA Meyer
Beauvallet by Georgette Beyer
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

That's plenty to start with. I seem to be heavy with British Naval stories, so suggestions that branch of a bit would be welcome.

Nonfiction

The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Mawson's Will by Lennard Bickel
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
Atlantic by Simon Winchester
In Harm's Way by Doug Stanton
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett
Dead Wake by Erik Larsen
Raise The Titanic by Clive Cussler

I am including in here famous naval disasters, but you may choose to save them for another challenge. I know Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill also wrote some books about the navy that could go here. So could any memoirs, cruise ship stories, etc. It's all up to you.

Thread open!

Great theme! I have a book that friends of my mother wrote and got published as an ebook on their Panama Canal sailing experiences. I've never really wanted to read it.......but I think now is the time! Cruising Panama's Canal: Experience the sights, sounds and thrills of cruise travel, told with the wit and charm of travel memoir writers Al & Sunny Lockwood

That would be some fun armchair travel!

I've got tons of books to choose from for this, this will be extremely difficult!

Cindy, you don't need to worry about posting pictures to the thread, it's not required at all. I am looking forward to this theme. My grandchildren bought me a book a few years ago called Sea Witch by Helen Hollick. It's an 18th century pirate adventure story and I do love reading about pirates!

That does sound like fun! I have two nonfiction books, Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick and In Harm's Way on my shelves. I might re-read an Agatha Christie or something like that too.

I definitely want to get to Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse. (I'm a subscriber to Lighthouse Digest and I always try to take in some lighthouse photography when I can get up to Maine.)

I've read all of Mary Ellen Chase's major novels (Mary Peters and Silas Crockett are particularly maritime), but she wrote some very minor maritime histories, mainly for young readers, that I could really use for ROOTing and would be quick reads.

I may try to get around to rereads of Lord Jim or some other Conrad (though I've reread Heart of Darkness so recently that that won't be among my reading).

Thought I'd chime in with a few Canadian nautical possibilities?

The Navigator of New York / Wayne Johnston (he's a Canadian author!)
The Cat's Table / Michael Ondaatje (also a Canadian author, not my favourite book, but to give another option!)

There are disaster stories of travel to the Arctic and Antarctic, as well:
Endurance: Shakleton's Incredible Voyage / Alfred Lansing
(Ok, I know there are more than that, but it's one I have tagged "oceans"! And it was a favourite! I recently finished another to the Arctic, but the title is not coming to me, and apparently I didn't tag it oceans)
This is it!!!
In the Kingdom of Ice / Hampton Sides (will likely be on my favourites for this year!)

Now, to see what's on my tbr...

Ugh! I have the perfect one, but my library doesn't have it!

The other side of the night / Daniel Allen Butler

I could request via ILL, but those tend to take a couple of months to come for me.

Another option that my library does have:
Daughters of the Sea: Hannah / Kathryn Lasky

I think I will go with a book from my shelves: D-Day.......I bought it when in Normandy and never read. Or I could go arm chair traveling through the Panama Canal on a cruise--with Cruising Panama's Canal: Experience the sights, sounds and thrills of cruise travel, told with the wit and charm of travel memoir writers Al & Sunny Lockwood Perhaps both since they are short!

Ill be rereading Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before Tony Horwitz The author is a journalist who has been writing books about his journeys since the 90s. This one is one of my favs - Not only is it an interesting different look at Cook and his voyage, but its full of history, travel, with a great sense of humor, and with a sensitivity to what is happening around him. Surprised the Touchstones don't work, but here is a link:

Blue Latitudes

Sounds like some good ideas on here! Getting close to July.

I pulled The Lost Empress from my shelves. It is a book in the Jefferson Tayte genealogical mysteries and is about the Empress of Ireland which sank in the St. Lawrence in 1914. It was as large a maritime disaster as the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania but the event is little known today.

>14 Familyhistorian: definitely a BB for me!

>14 Familyhistorian: It's the fourth book in the Jefferson Tate genealogical mysteries, Tess, just so you know.

nvm, wrong thread

>16 Familyhistorian: Ooooooo, that may change my mind! I have so many series started already........

>18 Tess_W: Always room for one more?

>19 Familyhistorian: Going to put it on my wish list, instead of making it a BB. I have made a pledge to myself to not get ONE more book that is part of a series until I have finished 3 that I'm immersed in currently.

>20 Tess_W: Good luck with that, Tess. Besides The Lost Empress I also took several books about the actual sinking of the Empress out from the library. I knew the name of the ship was familiar. My grandfather immigrated to Canada on the Empress in 1911.

>21 Familyhistorian: Wow, nice piece of history.

>21 Familyhistorian: I had the information wrong when I first did the research and thought he came on the Laurentic, also in 1911 but I found out last year that I had the wrong entry and it was the Empress of Ireland he came on. So it was one doomed ship or the other!

Cruising Panama's Canal: Experience the sights, sounds and thrills of cruise travel, told with the wit and charm of travel memoir writers Al & Sunny Lockwood by Al Lockwood was an informative and amusing tale of one couple's cruise via Holland Lines through the Panama Canal. Am looking into this myself! 176 pages 5 stars

So, I'm about to start my book that I chose for this. I'm unsure if it will really fit "history", so we'll see. It is tagged historical fiction.

I also requested another book from the library today called The Stowaway, so that will definitely fit!

Ah, I suppose this could work... I've already requested the other one from the library, so I'll probably read it, as well.

Daughters of the Sea: Hannah / Kathryn Lasky
4 stars

It’s 1899. Hannah is an orphan and, at 15 years old, can no longer be supported by the orphanage. When she is sent inland (from Boston), she has an odd skin reaction and soon after ends up back in Boston where the sea air seems better for her. She finds a job as a scullery maid, and meets a painter who seems to be able to sense something about her…

I really liked this. It’s YA, so very quick to read. The author has some beautiful descriptions. Quickly glancing at other reviews, some people didn’t like the focus on a servant’s life, but I really like historical fiction and found it very interesting!

I have read a novella that Karl May wrote under one of his many pseudonyms: Robert Surcouf – Ein Seemannsbild. Surcouf was a French corsair during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

I have completed my read of Sea Witch that I chose for this month's nautical theme. This was a fun read about the golden age of pirates in the 1700's. The book was more of a historical romance with a touch of magic added than a straight forward historical read, but I was totally caught up in it and will definitely be reading the other two books in the trilogy.

DQ - you got me with that one!

>29 cmbohn: Cindy, it's a fun read and how can anyone resist pirates!!

Eric Jay Dolin, Brilliant Beacons (5***** review), a history of American lighthouses.

As a subscriber to Lighthouse Digest who's visited and photographed some lighthouses in Maine, I've been particularly interested in getting around to this one, which has been in a TBR pile for a while and which I then decided to save for this month's read.

I quite enjoyed a children's book acquired by my sister yesterday. Ahoi, Kater Nelson! is the tale of young tomcat who runs away to sea and befriends a ship's boy on a sailing ship. Short, sweet fun.

edited for touchstone

What is more nautical that the sinking of a ship? The Lost Empress was the fourth book in the Jefferson Tayte genealogical mystery series. I really enjoy mysteries and genealogy and this was a good one and included information about the Empress of Ireland which I wanted to know more about.

Life on the Mississippi, in Mark Twain: Mississippi Writings (Library of America)

I wanted to know more about the sinking of the Empress of Ireland so turned to nonfiction to find out the true story about what happened. Fourteen Minutes: The last voyage of the Empress of Ireland was a book whose title came from the length of time it took the ship to go down. I was a good account of events but a bit dated in its approach.

The Stowaway: A Young Man's Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica / Laurie Gwen Shapiro
3.75 stars

Billy Gawronski’s parents immigrated from Poland to New York. He grew up wanting to be a sailor, and at 17, though his Dad wanted him to take over his successful interior design business, Billy stowed away on a ship belonging to his hero, Richard Byrd. Byrd had planned to be the first to fly over the Atlantic, but Lindberg just barely beat him to it. Instead, Byrd decided to head to Antarctica by ship, then to be the first to fly to the South Pole. Billy wanted to be part of it all.

This was good. It followed Billy (and Byrd), not just to Antarctica and back (and that is the bulk of the book), but I liked that it continued when they returned. They returned in 1930, just after the collapse of the stock market and the economy was bad, so it was not easy for any of the returning crew (though hailed as heroes) to find work at that time.

I finished Schwarze Flagge Rote Segel, a run-of-the-mill naval yarn about a young Royal Navy Lieutenant who gets sent to the Caribbean fighting pirates.

I actually read this last summer, but just remembered Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan. Not sure if its been mentioned yet but it fits here. The book takes place during WW2 in NY, a young woman is looking for her father who has disappeared. She works in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and wants to be a diver. Really really good.

Mary Ellen Chase, Sailing the Seven Seas (3½*** review). Current-day readers won't find it of much interest unless, like myself, your an aficionado of Chase as a novelist.

I also finished Harte Männer Schwere See, where Lt Turner is detailed to intercept a French frigate carrying General von Steuben to America. Well, we know he arrived, so there was little suspense in the book. Competently written, at least.

Mary Ellen Chase, Donald McKay and the Clipper Ships (3*** review), not quite as good as Sailing the Seven Seas (>39 CurrerBell:). I have one more "nautical" read by Chase in this "North Star Books" series, a children's historical series from the mid-60s, and I'll probably do it this afternoon and early evening to get it in for the end of July.

I enjoyed Empress, but forgot to review it. I'm not really crazy about switching back and forth in time, though this one was done well enough.

Mary Ellen Chase, The Fishing Fleets of New England, Chase's third and last contribution to the "North Star Books" series. I'll give this one 3*** but only marginally so. It's of some interest to Chase aficionados but definitely not as good as the two earlier volumes (>39 CurrerBell: >41 CurrerBell:). Anyway, these are books I've been meaning to get around to for ages; this month's "Nautical" topic's given me a great incentive to do so, especially since they're such quick reads; and all three of these quick reads also count as ROOTs.

I finished another one two hours before the chimes of midnight: Der Pirat Napoleons, another fictional account of the exploits of Robert Surcouf. Told from the perspective of his right hand man, the Marquis de Kérazan. I do not remember ever having read before that they managed to capture two East Indiamen with just a little corvette. Looks like the English successfully suppressed that.

I finished two books for this challenge:

Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, Peter Høeg, 3.5 stars
Fiction. Setting: 1990s Greenland and Denmark
NOTES:
A bit far-fetched for my taste, but an interesting whodunit, much of which was shipboard, in the icy seas near Greenland.

and

Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea, Frank Delaney , 4 stars

Nonfiction. Setting: December 1951 – January 1952, North Seas
NOTES:
This is the story of the cargo ship The Flying Enterprise, which was struck by rogue waves in a force 10 storm in the north seas in December of 1951, cracking the ship. Of the heroism of the crew, especially the “black gang” working tirelessly in impossible conditions to try to get the engine going again, and of the crew members jumping into the rough freezing ocean, each one going with a passenger, in order to get them to rowboat rescuers from other ships standing by. Her captain, Kurt Carlsen, would not leave his ship. As long as there was a possibility of bringing it into harbor, he wanted to stay with it.

The ship left Hamburg, Germany on 12/21 and soon encountered very rough seas, was struck by the worst waves and cracked on Christmas night, which also shifted her heavy cargo, and started her listing. By the time other ships were able to get near enough to send rowboats to try to effect a rescue of the 10 passengers, and the ship’s crew, it was 12/28. The seas were too rough to attempt it. Finally, on the 29th, the passengers and crew were able to be rescued. Captain Carlsen stayed, using the ship’s radio as long as it lasted, then retrieving a radio from his personal motorbike which he used for getting around ports, and using that sporadically. The freshwater pipes had busted, and the only food he was able to salvage was a raisin cake which had been put into a tin for New Year’s eve; his only beverage the bottled beer he found. On January 3, 1952, the tug sent to tow in his ship arrived. Many attempts were made to attach, but being alone, Carlsen was not able to accomplish the attaching of lines, which normally would have taken many hands. On 1/4, as the tug rode a crest with the Enterprise in a trough, a worker from the tug suddenly just leaped onto the cargo ship. With Ken Dancy helping him, they were able to attach the lines, and on 1/5, the tow began. They covered hundreds of miles before the tow line parted on 1/10, just 40 miles from port. By this time, the list was so bad, that the Captain knew there was no more hope. As the smoke stack was now virtually horizontal at the water line, first Dancy, then Carlsen walked to the edge and jumped out to be rescued.

Much speculation abounded regarding what sort of freight that obviously hadn’t shown up on the ship’s manifest made salvage operations worthwhile, when they commenced ten years later. That, however, was not the interesting part of the book. I was fascinated by the doings of the Captain and his crew.

The author included memories of listening to this story unfold at his home in Ireland, when he was a child, and of thinking then about the difference between this man and his own father. So there was also much about fathers and sons in his telling of this story. This, I think, weakened his telling.

Overall, though – four stars.


The tug Turmoil beginning towing operations on The Flying Enterprise, January 4, 1952. Imagine riding on this listing ship for the next six days!


The Flying Enterprise. The smoke funnel from which Captain Carlsen and Ken Dancy just jumped. January 10, 1952.