Patricia Abbott (pattinase): Your Favorite Novel That Takes Place at Sea

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Your Favorite Novel That Takes Place at Sea

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0122VFAFE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Reading this right now. And really liking it.

What are some of the great novels that take place at sea?

25 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...: Gotta be "The Old Man and the Sea."; 8:36 AM
George said...: Best sea stories ever written:

The Aubrey–Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian

Master and Commander (1969)
Post Captain (1972)
HMS Surprise (1973)
The Mauritius Command (1977)
Desolation Island (1978)
The Fortune of War (1979)
The Surgeon's Mate (1980)
The Ionian Mission (1981)
Treason's Harbour (1983)
The Far Side of the World (1984)
The Reverse of the Medal (1986)
The Letter of Marque (1988)
The Thirteen-Gun Salute (1989)
The Nutmeg of Consolation (1991)
Clarissa Oakes (1992) (published as The Truelove in the USA)
The Wine-Dark Sea (1993)
The Commodore (1994)
The Yellow Admiral (1996)
The Hundred Days (1998)
Blue at the Mizzen (1999)
The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (2004) (published as 21 in the USA); 8:58 AM
Anonymous said...: She is a really talented author, Patti! I can see why you're enjoying it so much.; 9:00 AM
mybillcrider said...: I like THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA but never got onto Patrick O'Brian's series. I like CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS, too, but my favorite would be MOBY DICK.; 9:27 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: Like Bill, I tried but couldn't get into the O'Brian series. I've not a great sea story person. I read MOBY DICK in an abridged version in high school. Didn't love it. OLD MAN AND THE SEA was good but far from my favorite Hemingway.; 11:41 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Does Travis McGee count?; 11:43 AM
Jerry House said...: Homer's THE ODYSSEY.

Gore Vidal's WILLIWAW.

I also have a great fondness for A. Bertram Chandler's Rim series of SF stories. Chandler was a ship's captain and the series boils down to sea stories set in space.

William Hope Hodgson's sea fantasies, although uneven, are worthwhile.

I have never been able to get into either Moby Dick or the Patrick O'Brien books. For decades now I've been saying that I'm going to read the Hornblower books "real soon now." **sigh**; 11:46 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I have friends who worship both O'Brien and Forrester but not me.; 11:59 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: I picked up the first Hornblower book last year but still haven't started it.; 2:38 PM
Anonymous said...: Two by Richard Hughes: A High Wind in Jamaica & In Hazard
Conrad's Typhoon & The Secret Sharer
William Golding's To the Ends of the Earth
Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea; 3:19 PM
Elgin Bleecker said...: Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone; 4:55 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I think I read that one, Elgin. Read A HIGH WIND years ago.; 5:03 PM
Rick Robinson said...: Mr Midshipman Hornblower
Mutuny on the Bounty
Typhoon
Captain Blood

I might have said Captains Courageous but I recently reread it and was disappointed.; 5:16 PM
Todd Mason said...: As I've shamefully yet to read MOBY DICK, I can put in a good word for "Billy Budd"...

Certainly such YA novels as CALL IT COURAGE and ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS come immediately to mind. And Gordon Dickson's SECRET UNDER THE SEA, which along with THE UNDERSEA WORLD OF JACQUES COUSTEAU got me started to study oceanography as late as undergraduate status...

At the moment, I'll opt for Damon Knight's CV trilogy. Shute's ON THE BEACH, Silverberg's HAWKSBILL STATION and the Melville novella as the runners (sailors) up...; 3:56 AM
Todd Mason said...: And I think Travis mostly travels via the inland waterway...so he'd have to slug it out with Huck and Jim (and Avram Davidson's river pirates in "The Lord of Central Park") for best running freshwater books.; 4:00 AM
Todd Mason said...: (That is to say, I started reading about oceanography while about 8yo or so, and was still partially serious about the pursuit more than a decade later...); 4:02 AM
Todd Mason said...: And "The Secret Sharer" has to be considered, too.; 4:05 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Either Moby is your favorite book or you never have read it (me), I find.; 9:16 AM
Walker Martin said...: I like Joseph Conrad a lot but if I had to pick one novel it would be MOBY DICK. I've read it three times and it's about time for another rereading.; 9:30 AM
Rick Robinson said...: I did read, forced to as an assignment in high school, MOBY DICK, and disliked it in the extreme. Nothing has changed that opinion.; 11:46 AM
Gerard Saylor said...: CRUEL SEA by Nicholas Monsarrat. WWII escort ships.
THE TERROR by Dan Simmons. Frozen in the Arctic ice.
THE SEA WOLF by Jack London.; 12:25 PM
Todd Mason said...: My brother read it, inspired in part by its role in the movie HEATHERS...I suspect it isn't his favorite, but might be his favorite ocean-going novel.; 4:25 PM
Todd Mason said...: Gerard's answer does make it clear FRANKENSTEIN could count.; 4:26 PM
Todd Mason said...: Hell, come to think of it, so could DRACULA.; 4:26 PM
Rick said...: Katherine Anne Porter's "Ship Of Fools".
Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny".; 12:33 PM