I have really been having a hard time finding a good here recently, anybody know of any that would fit in with the categories below?
- Adventures on the sea. (pirates/sailors)
- NO romance.
- Elements of tragedy. (encountering problems/battles/bad weather)
- Non-fiction or fiction.
Much appreciated ^^.
Last edited by Lady D. Luffy; 12-08-2011 at 09:57 AM.
~If you go one step ahead of me, i'll make you cry.~
For your first category I might recommend Wilbur Smith's Courtney series. I haven't read a few of the earliest ones but certainly starting with Birds of Prey forward they would fit the bill (though there are some naughty bits... not romance focused though).
Good luck!
An eclectic collection of learned behaviors.
Mieville's The Scar is about a sea adventure if you don't mind fantasy literature.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini should fit the bill, except for the non-fiction part. Good movies, too.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi
The Bounty Trilogy I thought was a wonderful book (or books) about a sea adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them.
Also Treasure Island is quite good and Kidnapped.
Of course Moby Dick
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is a horror-fantasy that involves an adventure at sea.
For Non-Fiction with tragic elements Mary, Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser I thought was a fabulous book, and very engaging.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
I think that yu should read The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream and T Sail the Century Sea buth by AG. C. Edmondson. Taken together they are the best novel of the 20th century.
You may enjoy Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin books, set in the period of the Napoleonic Wars - Master and Commander is the first of the series, in which Jack Aubrey receives the command of his first ship, and though each can be read as an independent book, there is a running narrative concerning the careers, life and loves of the two main characters (not too much sloppy romance, however, these are essentially men of action!).
C S Forrester's Hornblower books cover the same period but I personally rate O'Brien's writing above Forrester's.
Had you not banned Romance, I'd have recommended Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn or Frenchman's Creek - there's Romance and romance, after all.....
For non-fiction, Robert K Massie's Dreadnought charts the deadly competition between Britain and Germany for naval supremacy in the years leading up to the First World War.
Last edited by kasie; 12-08-2011 at 08:19 AM.
Just to second a couple of the above, The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream is excellent, and while I haven't read them, my father is a big fan of Patrick O'Brien's stuff.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi
"Battle Royale" by Koushun Takami. =)
"We look at the world, at governments, across the spectrum, some with more freedom, some with less. And we observe that the more repressive the State is, the closer life under it resembles Death. If dying is deliverance into a condition of total non-freedom, then the State tends, in the limit, to Death. The only way to address the problem of the State is with counter-Death, also known as Chemistry." -- Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day
I must second the notion to read "Battle Royale". Although it may be a somewhat easy read, it is a very captivating novel, with nice character development.
"The Raven" by Peter Landesman. Sea, weather, tragedy - amazing book
Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in my ear,
Whifflingpin! Why stayest thou here?
The movie is good kitschy fun too.Originally Posted by Zelian
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
the odyssey.....
I'm always home, I'm uncool.
Conrad & Masefield both wrote a number of sea yarns at the end of the age of sail.
Masefield, for example, "Victorious Troy" "The Bird of Dawning" and many others.
Conrad, for example, "The Nigger of the Narcissus" "Lord Jim" and also many others.
Both authors spent sea time before turning to writing, so, although the stories are fiction, their books are truly about the sea & ships of their time, written from experience not from historical research.
Of course, there is Captain Marryat, another seaman turned novelist, about a century earlier than Masefield & Conrad, and, I think, much more dated than either of them.
For true tales, R. Henry Dana's "Two years before the mast" (1840) and Captain Joshua Slocum's "Sailing alone around the world" (1900) are classics, still readily available. Easy to read, in fact "must read."
Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in my ear,
Whifflingpin! Why stayest thou here?
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