Recommended Reading

[kwaltersmi]

Here's a couple I've finished recently and would recommend:

"Letters from the Lost Soul" by Bob Bitchin

"Seasoned by Salt" by I FORGOT!!!

[werebeagle]

The Hornblower series is fiction

[mega98]

"Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking peoples hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

-Melville's Moby Dickshould get the nod.

[mstern]

How could I forget two classics by Ernest Gann: Song of the Sirens and Twilight of the Gods. Song is non-fiction and is Gann's memoir about his various sailboats. Interestingly, Gann was an owner of Albatross, the boat immortalized in White Squall. Twilight is a novel set the dying days of commerical sail in the South Pacific. A hard luck island-hopping ship with a load of copra, a less than trustworthy mate, a couple of knuckleheaded crewmen and a passenger list that spells drama. A beautifully written book that evokes a place and time that is no more.

[jtommins]

Some additions for the library....

1. Chapman's ...of course.
2-" First you have to row a little boat" - Richard Bode...the story of the simple joy of experiencing boating in the life of a young boy. Reminds you why you love boating so much...
3. Racing with Cornelius Shields and the Masters...by Cornelius Shields. stories of mid 20th century yacht racing, design and techniques told by the men that led the era.
4. Better Boat Handling- Des Sleightholme
5. Dan Spurr's Boatbook - Upgrading th Cruising Sailboat
6. Oxford's Companion to ships and the Sea- Kemp- Reference-
7. The Perfect Storm
8. Ashley book of knots
9. Dave Perry's -Undersatanding the Racing Rules

p/s glad Outerbridge Reach made the list

[johnsail]

I write boating books -- technical, storm-related, and historical -- so do my best to keep up with new titles. There aren't as many as there used to be, back when we had a boating book club (the Dolphin Book Club, part of Book of the Month), but all the same a number of new ones appear each year.

Like many who have been contributing to this thread, I love the classics -- Slocum, of course, and anything by Conrad, Carleton Mitchell, Miles Smeeton, and Earl Bruce. My favorite this year is Beth Leonard's Blue Horizons: Dispatches from Distant Seas. Not a technical manual like her previous books, it's a wonderful, glowing collection of her columns from Blue Water Sailing about life on board. She brings her readers into the cockpit and cabin to meet not just good sailors but interesting, quirky, and very real people.

Other recent books that I've especially liked are the ultimate one-volume reference, The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, where (among other things) you get the last word on why a seagoing toilet's a "head" and why a sail's hoisted by a "halyard." The range of the 2,600-plus entries – from A (Aaron Manby, the first iron steamship) to Y (yuloh, a Chinese term for “oar”) – is extraordinary.

I'm a fan also of Christopher Pastore's Temple to the Wind, part biography of Nat Herreshoff and part history of the great monster America's Cup defender Reliance. And then there’sDallas Murphy's Rounding the Horn. Some people go to Cape Horn to double it. A few go down there to travel about, visit the towns, and meet the locals. Murphy, an experienced sailor and professional writer, took the last path. As he sails out to the rock, Murphy interweaves his own experiences with the Horn’s bloody 500-year history.

[Kernix]

Originally Posted by jtommins

Some additions for the library....

1. Chapman's ...of course.


p/s glad Outerbridge Reach made the list

Which Chapman's I don't see him in my list

[mstern]

Just finished Peter Nicholls' "Sea Change". Someone else mentioned it earlier, and I wanted to add another enthusiastic vote. Great story, very well written. Far more than another sea story, its a very readable self-examination of what lead Peter to sail solo across the atlantic in a 24 foot wooden boat, and why he tried to keep going even when it became apparent he was sinking.

[T34C]

Mega-

You should try "The Loss of the Ship Essex". It is the real account of the whale ship Essex that Mobey Dick was based on.

[Goodnewsboy]

Hi Kernix:
"Chapman's" is Chapman Piloting, Seamanship and Small Boat Handling
It is a great resource in a single volume.

See:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...6/trawlerworld