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

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

    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 :]

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    The Poetic Warrior Dark Muse's Avatar
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    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.

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

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    Registered User sixsmith's Avatar
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    Moby Dick
    'Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.' - Groucho Marx

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    Quote Originally Posted by jehbeh View Post
    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

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    Registered User kiki1982's Avatar
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    The Old Man and the Sea by Hemmingway. About the Caribbean.
    One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.

    "Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)

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    "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.

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    Prefers to read Amoxcalli's Avatar
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    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.

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    The Ghost and Mrs Muir by RA Dick. It was made into a great movie and TV series.
    When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent

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    Registered User hellsapoppin's Avatar
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    When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent

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    Cool Tales of the sea ....

    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.

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    rat in a strange garret Whifflingpin's Avatar
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    "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.
    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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    rat in a strange garret Whifflingpin's Avatar
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    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.
    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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    A period piece

    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

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    somewhere else Helga's Avatar
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    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_Sto...wrecked_Sailor
    I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo

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    Literature Fiend Mariamosis's Avatar
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    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'
    Last edited by Mariamosis; 02-02-2010 at 10:25 AM.
    -Mariamosis

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