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One of those genres where I love what I've read but haven't read much. I'd love to get into it more, and I didn't see a thread for it already, so here's this one. I'll start with the last two that I've read (not very recently, so I apologize for not writing more deeply about them): Sharks and Little Fish, by Wolfgang Ott Novel about German submariners in WWII; the author served on a U-Boat himself. It takes some time to get going, but things pick up before too long, and once the POV characters actually go to sea, it's absolutely riveting. My copy's a first-run hardback that I found at a used bookstore; I picked it up for the cover, I bought it for the description of a mine explosion that I randomly opened it to. The tension and violence in this book are extreme, but they're also extremely believable - I can't imagine what it was like to actually be in submarine combat in WWII. For anyone who's seen Das Boot (I never read the book, but the movie's one of my absolute favorites), this book's words are every bit as vivid as the images in that film. Read it if you have any appreciation for or interest in submarines and naval warfare. (I know, I really need to get around to reading Das Boot.  ) We, the Drowned, by Carsten Jensen I remember this book getting some buzz when it came out in English in 2011, but I didn't read it until a couple years ago, when I saw it for something like ten bucks at an overstock warehouse. It follows different people in a family's and town's history over several generations - it starts in the mid-1800s and finishes with the end of WWII - and goes all kinds of different places with it. Extremely vivid, whether talking about war or peace, families or crews, and it completely lives up to its grandiose ambitions. The only problem is that the ending is strange and a bit anticlimactic (it tries to tie everything together, but it does it in a way that's almost entirely divorced from the rest of the book), but it's hard to really complain when everything else is so great. Read this thing! Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 09:00
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| # ? May 15, 2024 22:36 |
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I've long had a soft spot for Bjorn Larsson's autobiography for Long John Silver, which chronicles his career at sea as ship's boy turned gentleman of fortune. Very evocative, and good fun.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:06
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I love We, The Drowned, so I'm seconding that recommendation. I've also been getting through the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien lately. They're a historical fiction series, focusing on the relationship between Royal Navy captain "Lucky Jack" Aubrey and his half-Irish, half-Catalan surgeon, Stephen Maturin, set in the Napoleonic Wars. They're a must-read if you're into nautical fiction though, the level of detail and the amount of world-building is amazing, and you get really sucked into the bizarre world of the British navy 200 years ago. Also going to recommend HMS Ulysses by Alistair Maclean. It follows a cruiser on one of the Arctic convoys in WW2 (Maclean served on these himself) and definitely falls into the camp of the sea being as much an enemy as the U-boats. On a similar theme, Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea follows three Royal Navy officers on the North Atlantic convoys across the course of the war and is a classic of the genre. Owlkill fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 12, 2015 13:15
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I recommended it in the Aubrey-Maturin thread and I'll do it again here. I am reading the Alan Lewrie series by Dewey Lambdin and I'm enjoying it. It's set in roughly the same time frame as the Aubrey-Maturin and Horatio Hornblower series, but Lewrie is more of a rake-hell bastard than Aubrey, Maturin or Hornblower. Like Hornblower, he often feels like he's a bit of an imposter, but his personality might be considered the exact opposite of Hornblower. His motivations are more reminiscent of Aubrey, but he's less of a lovable fool away from the ship. In many ways, he seems more real than the aforementioned characters, though the scenarios he finds himself in are often more unrealistic. A good example of this might be the circus ship that joins a John Company convoy Lewrie's frigate is escorting and fights off a French boarding party by sending its lions and bears at the invading frogs. It wasn't a very likely event, but fun as hell to read nonetheless. Anyway, I like it, and if you crave more after reading the 28 or so books in Patrick O'Brian's series then I recommend you give it a try. Or maybe mix it in as you read Patrick O'Brian's books so both series stay fresh. NotWearingPants fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 09:22
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Have to mention Alfred Lansing's amazing "Endurance", which includes Shackleton's shipwreck on the Antarctic ice and the stranding of his crew on the uninhabited Elephant Island. The most staggering part is the boat journey from that island to South Georgia through the stormiest ocean in the world in an open boat in freezing temperatures. If someone wrote it as fiction you'd never take it seriously. Honestly, it is one of the most astonishing things you'll ever read. If you fancy getting tips on marine exploration books and want to make recommendations, you are welcome to join us on the Arctic exploration thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3655083
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Jan 13, 2015 14:41
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| # ? May 15, 2024 22:36 |
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There's also the classic Riddle of the Sands (the sands are sandbanks)
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Jan 13, 2015 15:52
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