The last good book you read (and a mini description)

Cafe Society
41

I thought since this is a book suggestion thread I should maybe mention some of the other sea stories, fiction and nonfiction, I’ve felt were exceptionally compelling:

In Harm’s Way - Emotionally devastating nonfiction book on the sinking of the USS Indianapolis - went down in twelve minutes, nobody knew it was missing, and then the sharks came.

*Sailors to the End - * - Another sad nonfiction book on the fire on the USS Forestal in Vietnam - I guess I’m a sucker for punishment

Two Years Before the Mast - A nonfiction account from a Harvard guy who shipped aboard a merchanter bound for the pre-Gold rush California coast. He wrote it to draw attention to the awful conditions on board the sailing ships of the day, but accidentally convinced a bunch of young men to run away to sea because even though it really is awful it also kind of sounds like a great adventure. (Probably available in the public domain.)

In the Heart of the Sea - a nonfiction account of the whale attack that inspired Moby Dick, and a great look at the whaling culture in general. Also really sad. Are there sea stories that aren’t?

For fiction, Forester’s Hornblower books and O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin stories are indispensable. I’d start with Beat to Quarters for Hornblower, first written but not first in the chronology, and Master and Commander for Aubrey (first written and first in the timeline.)

Those are just the first few that come to mind, for the interested. Which there probably aren’t any, but oh well.

42

A Mad Life, a biography of Al Jaffe. Gripping, about his difficult upbringing in America, then transplanted to Lithuania, back to America. Ya gotta read it.
with cartoons

43

Just wanted to chime in to agree wholeheartedly with this. It’s an incredibly affecting story. I’d picked it up upon hearing it served as the basis for the story Quint tells in the movie Jaws (the story, that is, not the book, which was more recently published), and chilling as that scene is, the book is much more disquieting (all the more so for being true, of course).

44

There are certainly some sad parts in The Cruel Sea, and one character suffers a particularly terrible loss, but it’s a wonderful story, wonderfully told. I don’t think you’ll regret reading it.