Looking for great books that take place by or on the ocean...

[jehbeh]

They don't have to be about the ocean either. More specifically, I just want the atmosphere of living by the ocean in a fishing town or an adventure out at sea. Thanks :]

[Dark Muse]

To The Lighthouse by Virgina Wolf is set near the ocean and has some nice beach scenes in it.

The Bounty Trilogy by Nardoff and Hall, was a great story about an adventure at sea. I really enjoyed reading this book and found it very readable, it is not bogged down by difficult to understand terminology.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin is another book with some good beach scenes. Though in this book they don't actually live by the beach, but vacation there, but a good portion of it is near and around the beach.

Kidnapped and Treasure Island are good sea adventures by Robert Louis Stevenson. I enjoyed Kidnapped slightly more.

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles is a story set in a town that is near to the ocean.

The Magus by John Fowles is an excellent book in which the majority of it takes place upon a Greek Island.

[sixsmith]

Moby Dick

[Vautrin]

They don't have to be about the ocean either. More specifically, I just want the atmosphere of living by the ocean in a fishing town or an adventure out at sea. Thanks :]

John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and its sequel, Sweet Thursday

[kiki1982]

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemmingway. About the Caribbean.

[baudolino]

"Two years before the mast" by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; a diary of a lawyer from XIX century that enrolled as a common sailor to improve his health; he sailed from Boston to San Francisco (around Cape Horn). A great book that gives a description of early California; it was very influential during its time regarding sailors' rights etc.

[Amoxcalli]

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel.

Granted, the first half of the book has nothing to do with the ocean whatsoever, but the second part more than makes up for that! One of my favourite novels, even though it's been a while since I last read it.

[hellsapoppin]

The Ghost and Mrs Muir by RA Dick. It was made into a great movie and TV series.

[hellsapoppin]

Treasure Island!

http://www.online-literature.com/stevenson/treasureisland/

[dfloyd]

Practically anything by Joseph Conrad. I just finished Lord Jim for the second time. Marlowe, Conrad's narrator tells a whopping good story. Conrad is at his best in Nostromo.

[Whifflingpin]

"Sailing alone around the world" - Joshua Slocum, a C19th book account of sailing alone around the world, a really good yarn.

Various books by John Barth, "Tidewater Tales," "The last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor," etc. Post-modernist novels set on or by the sea.

[Whifflingpin]

John Masefield also wrote some cracking good sea yarns. - "The Bird of Dawning" and "Victorious Troy" spring to mind.

And A.E. "Sinbad" Dingle deserves to be better remembered than he is.

Check out W.W. Jacobs, who wrote plenty of (mostly humorous) tales about the lives on and off the water of seafaring folk.

[parisp]

Just read the new Michael Chreighton book, Pirate Latitude. Its all about pirates in the colonies back in the 1700's. Its a good, entertaining read

[Helga]

don't know if it's what your looking for but Gabriel Garcia Marques book ?the story of the shipwrecked sailor' is really good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_a_Shipwrecked_Sailor

[Mariamosis]

In addition to that list:

Jack London's 'Sea Wolf'
Ernest Hemmingway's 'The Garden of Eden'
Jules Verne's ' The Mysterious Island'
Aldous Huxley's 'Island'
John Steinbeck's 'The Pearl'

[JuniperWoolf]

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Poe. It has more twists than an M. Night Shyamalan film, and I thought it was alright.

[jehbeh]

Thank you for all the recommendations! I decided to grab The Old Man and the Sea first. Looks like a fantastic, quick read.

And to the person who suggested The Awakening, I definitely had a laugh there, especially in regard to the meaning behind the ocean in that story. Not to mention the last part of the book. :]

[keilj]

Thank you for all the recommendations! I decided to grab The Old Man and the Sea first. Looks like a fantastic, quick read.

And to the person who suggested The Awakening, I definitely had a laugh there, especially in regard to the meaning behind the ocean in that story. Not to mention the last part of the book. :]

you picked a great one to start with

I've heard Captains Courageous highly recommended - but I could not get past the seafaring dialect to really enjoy it

[mal4mac]

The Tempest - Shakespeare
Rites of Passage - William Golding
The Odyssey - Homer (Rieu translation if you prefer prose!) Maybe the Iliad?

I also liked these:

Treasure Island - Stevenson
Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad

[neilgee]

Rites of Passage (Sea Trilogy) by William Golding [as mentioned above]. This was originally three separate but consecutive novels about life on the sea and Rites of Passage which was the final instalment of the trilogy and it was considered good enough to win the Booker Prize in 1980, but it's now sold as one book.

[dfloyd]

20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea?

[novelsryou]

Raise the Titanic ~Clive Cussler~ This was written before the discovery of the wreck - pretty cool when they tow it into NY harbor.