reading list for the landlocked sailor

[unbusted67]

Here in New England I find that to be a sailor means sailing for four months out of the year and then reading about sailing for the remaining eight. I have searched around this sight and found plenty of magazine, online articles, and reference book suggestions. What I haven't found is a comprehensive reading list of novels or nonfiction books about sailing (stuff you can lay in bed and read). What are everyone's favorite books?

I have looked around for a thread similar to this one and have been unable to find one but if one already exists please just put the link in and don't make me feel guilty about the redundancy.

[Talbot]

Best list and still growing is available here - yes I know its a rival forum!

Anything by Tristan Jones. I recommend starting with "Seagulls In My Soup" next, I would recomend "Incredible Voyage".
I believe it is by Farley Mowat, "The Boat Who Wouldn't Float" is good.
I forget the author, but "Graveyard of the Pacific" is a great read if you have any interest in ship wrecks, or in the Pacific North West.
"Gentlemen Never Sail To Weather" Is a good read, but a bit slow in parts.
Herb Paysen has two books out, "Blown Away", and "You Can't Blow Home Again". Both are a good representation of cruising with family.

[cat man do]

These ones from Gavin Lesuer are an essentual for the multihullers, and still a bloody good read for our hull challenged friends.

Multihull Sailing Books - Gavin LeSueur's online bookstore.

Dave

[dana-tenacity]

The Hornblower novels.

[Lynx]

Me, the boy and the cat

[unbusted67]

Who wrote the Hornblower books? Who wrote Me the Boy and the Cat?
Never was a huge Tristan Jones fan. I find he fancies himself a bit too much. He's always talking trash on his crews too, what kind of captain does that?

I have heard a lot of people talking about that Fatal Storm book on this sight. That one is awsome. It's about the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race.

I also just finished this book by Webb Chiles called "A Single Wave". This guy is crazy he's sort of extreme. He tried to circumnavigate in an 18" dinghy. It sunk and he sailed it while the thing was under water. Pretty crazy stuff but a great read no less.
A Single Wave - DISASTER AT SEA

I am also a huge fan of all the circumnavigator stuff. Slocum, Knox-johnson, Moittessier.

[Lynx]

Name: Boy Me And The Cat
Author: Henry M. Plummer
ISBN: 0971504156
Binding: Hard
Pages: 1996
Publication Date: 2001, 3rd ed

The story of a voyage from New Bedford, MA, to Miami, FL, by the author, his son and a cat aboard the Mascot, a 24' Cape Cod catboat. This edition of this classic tale includes: newly-discovered original photos taken during the voyage by the author, as well as selected letters, newspaper stories and vintage charts of the trip. Over 60 pictures taken by the author, selected vintage charts of the voyage, letters and newspaper clippings, newly designed color cover, complete, unabridged text in new, easy-to-read format, black and white drawings and photographs.

This voyage was before the ICW was dreged. 1920's or 30's.

Can be bought from Blue Water
Boy Me And The Cat

[Celestialsailor]

Wanderer by Sterling Hayden...anything by Bernard Moitessier

[dana-tenacity]

C S Forester wrote the Hornblower series, rumour is the guy who wrote Star Trek did so after reading them.
Also anything by Bill Tilman
Francis Cichesters' autobiography, The Lonely Sea and The Sky.

[swagman]

'Fastnet Force 10' by John Rouseniere - about the late 80's killer Fastnet race;
'The Race' by Tim Zimmerman about the first no holds barred round the world race;
'Fatal Storm' by Rob Mundle about the 1993 Sydney Hobart;
'Desperate Voyage' by John Calwell - a US merchant sailor who'd never sailed a yacht before, but bought one cheaply after WW2 to sail across the Pacific back to his Ozzie wife(highly recommended);
and for fiction try Douglas Reeman who favours WW2 naval novels.
Enjoy
JOHN

[dana-tenacity]

Phil Bolger's Design Books

Boats With an Open Mind

[Entlie]

A Salty Piece of Land (and all the other books) – Jimmy Buffet
Any or all of the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O’Brian
Around the World in Wander III and Come Aboard – Eric Hiscock (with his wife, Susan)
Around the World Single Handed – The Cruise of the “Islander” by Harry Pidgeon
Fluke – and all the other books by Christopher Moore
Beautiful Swimmers – William W. Warner (Pulitzer Prize Winner about waterman, crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay)
Blown Away – Herb Payson
Captains Courageous – Rudyard Kipling
Carry On Mr. Bowditch – Jean Lee Latham (Historical novel for children and grownups - about Nathaniel Bowditch). Newberry winner
Fair Seafarer – Nancy Adams (A woman travels with her husband who works on a cargo ship)
Maiden Voyage – Tania Aebi
Out Island Doctor – Evans W. Cottman - True story of the Bahamas
Sea Change – Alone Across the Atlantic in a Wooden Boat – Peter Nichols
Shadow Divers: True story of 2 Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II – Robert Kurson
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea – Gary Kinder (a true story of gold, shipwreck, science, and salvaging treasure)
The Girl from the Sea of Cortez – Peter Benchley
The Hungry Ocean – Linda Greenlaw, swordboat captain
The Last Marlin – Fred Waitzkin (Autobiographical, a boy who grows up learning to love boats, and fishing, and his father. The dysfunctional family part is sometimes hard to read. But the fishing stories are well worth the journey.)
The Life of Pi – Yann Martel (Best for armchair, not on-boat reading)
The Mysterious Island – Jules Verne
The Sea Hunters – Clive Cussler (but not his novels)
Two Years Before the Mast – Richard Henry Dana
Wind From the Carolinas – Robert Wilder – Novel of Loyalists in the Bahamas

Entlie
Sailing Catamaran Sunspot Baby

[Connemara]

Ask and it shall be given.

The December issue of Yachting Monthly has a listing of the 100 best sailing books "of all time."

Personally, I'd be hesitant to go that far, but it's a pretty wide-ranging list.

The Hornblower novels are good, as someone suggested, and so are the Jack Aubrey books by Patrick O'Brian. I just read a couple of the Richard Bolitho books by ? Kent, and they are not as good, IMO.

Connemara

I agree Tristan isn't everybody's cup-o-tea, but I enjoy his writing. OTOH, I realy don't enjoy Patrick O'Brian. So, different tastes. I have to agree about Moitessier.
Ice Bird is a good novel, and a bit topical with recent events in the southern ocean.