Sea State

Sea State is, on the one hand, a portrait of an overlooked industry, and a fascinating subculture in its own right: ‘offshore’ is a way of life for generations of British workers, primarily working-class men. Offshore is also a potent metaphor for a lot of things we might rather keep at bay—class, masculinity, the North-South divide, the transactional nature of desire, the terrible slipperiness of the ladder that could lead us towards (or away from) real security, just out of reach...

September 3, 1939, the day of the Spanish exiles’ splendid arrival in Chile, the Second World War broke out in Europe. Victor Dalmau is a young doctor when he is caught up in the Spanish Civil War, a tragedy that leaves his life - and the fate of his country - forever changed. Together with his sister-in-law, the pianist Roser Bruguera, he is forced out of his beloved Barcelona and into exile.

For thousands of years, we have set out sailing for all kinds of reasons - for battle, for infinite wealth, for the excitement of exploring the unknown, and for escape from the mundane. We have always had a primal relationship with the sea - even those who have never been to sea remain fascinated by the seafaring life and tales of salty adventure. Now in a brand–new series collection, The Best Sailing Stories Ever Told brings together such diverse authors as Charles Dickens, Jack London, John Masefield, Stephen Crane, Herman Melville, and dozens more.

The heroic story of the founding of the US Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America's first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation's character. In Rebels at Sea, Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory. Privateers were privately owned vessels that were granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war.

Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children.

In 1940 Steinbeck sailed in a sardine boat with his great friend the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, to collect marine invertebrates from the beaches of the Gulf of California. The expedition was described by the two men in Sea of Cortez, published in 1941. The day-to-day story of the trip is told here in The Log, which combines science, philosophy and high-spirited adventure. An exhilarating and highly entertaining listen.

A shadow is falling over Collegium. Despite the tenuous peace, Stenwold Maker knows that the Empire will return for his city. Even as he tries to prepare for the resurgence of the black-and-gold army, a hidden threat is working against his people. Ships that sail from Collegium's harbour are being attacked, sunk by pirates. Some just go missing.

In 1827 the Royal Navy purchased a Baltimore clipper and renamed her the Black Joke. Assigned to the Preventative Squadron, she patrolled the west coast of Africa and freed 3,692 captives from enslavement. Beloved by seafarers and celebrated by the public, the Black Joke would become the most famous weapon in the campaign for abolition. But in her previous life as the Henriqueta, the Black Joke had been a slave ship. Through the experiences of slavers and abolitionists, captives and crew, Stephen Taylor charts the vessel's extraordinary double life.

Following the disappearance of his only son and the death of his beloved wife, Richard Morgan is falsely imprisoned and exiled to the penal colonies of 18th-century Australia. His life is shattered, but Morgan refuses to surrender, overcoming all obstacles to find unexpected contentment and happiness in the harsh early days of Australia's settlement. From England's shores to Botany Bay and the rugged frontier of a hostile new world, Morgan's Run is the epic tale of love lost and found, and the man whose strength and character helped settle a country and define its future.

David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor from Lewes, Delaware, was kidnapped by Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda. In a best-selling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal to the Confederacy. In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe White’s enslavement and demise and illustrates how White’s actual life belies the Lost Cause narrative his captors sought to construct.

In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International, Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates for 977 days. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history.

Life is a work in progress, as ever-changing as a sandy shoreline along the beach. During the years Joan Anderson was a loving wife and supportive mother, she had slowly and unconsciously replaced her own dreams with the needs of her family. With her sons grown, however, she realized that the family no longer centered on the home she provided, and her relationship with her husband had become stagnant. Like many women in her situation, Joan realized that she had neglected to nurture herself and, worse, to envision fulfilling goals for her future.

A Speck on the Sea chronicles the greatest ocean voyages attempted in the littlest boats.

En plena Guerra Civil española, el joven médico Víctor Dalmau, junto a su amiga pianista Roser Bruguera, se ven obligados a abandonar Barcelona, exiliarse y cruzar los Pirineos rumbo a Francia. A bordo del Winnipeg, un navío fletado por el poeta Pablo Neruda que llevó a más de dos mil españoles rumbo a Valparaíso, embarcarán en busca de la paz y la libertad que no tuvieron en su país.

He was born anew in a world where martial arts were indistinguishable from magic. He only received a neuronet and meaningless desires from his past life. What lies ahead? He dreamed of adventure and freedom, but those dreams were taken away from him. The same way his mother, father, and sister had been taken away. They took the kingdom, they took his own destiny. But he is willing to wage a war, against the whole world if need be, to bring everything back.

The glaciers of the Sierra Nevada are melting, destroying the habitat of the mastodons, creating the rich land that will become California. The coastal people struggle to understand the changing world around them: Their seer Sunchaser has lost his way to the Spirit World and mammoths continue to disappear. When a beautiful woman arrives, fleeing from her abusive husband, the people know what they must do - for if the Spirits are already taking the animals away, what will happen if they shelter a stranger?

Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, is synonymous with the Kennedy family. It is where, for a hundred years, America’s most storied political family has come to celebrate, bond, play, and grieve. It is also the setting of so many events we remember: JFK giving his presidential acceptance speech, Jackie speaking with a Life magazine reporter just days after her husband’s assassination, Senator Edward Kennedy seeking refuge after the Chappaquiddick crash, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger tying the knot—and even Conor Kennedy courting pop star Taylor Swift.

Jock MacNeil, the eldest son of a Highland Catholic family, leaves school at 13 to follow his father's footsteps and become a blacksmith. But after a family tragedy changes his plans, Jock boards a schooner and heads to the New World. Soon, he befriends the retired Royal Navy Surgeon, James Gunn, and David Llewellyn of the CSS Alabama. Living among the seamen, Jock learns how to take responsibility - and how to defend himself. But can Jock survive the perilous journey, and what awaits him on the other side of the Atlantic?

In March of 1984, the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown left Montauk Harbor on what should have been a routine offshore voyage. Its captain, a married father of three young boys, was the boat’s owner and leader of the four-man crew, which included two locals and the blue-blooded son of a well-to-do summer family. After a week at sea, the weather suddenly turned, and the foursome collided with a nor’easter. They soon found themselves in the fight of their lives. Tragically, it was a fight they lost. Neither the boat nor the bodies of the men were ever recovered.

Over the years, thousands of tales both true and fantastic have been told about the dastardly thievery of pirates. Their rum-drunk exploits and high-seas violence never fail to delight. Now in a brand new series collection, The Best Pirate Stories Ever Told includes many of the very best pirate yarns ever created on history’s most debaucherous scalawags. Anyone who loves a good story full of excitement, adventure, thrills, and laughs will find this collection irresistible.