The Last Great Sea

By the author of numerous books of natural history, including "Dead Reckoning, " this is a voyage through the human and natural history of the North Pacific Ocean.

Connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millennia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. In this brilliant and expansive book, David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters-sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims-who have crossed and re-crossed it. Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all a history of human interaction. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. He stresses the remarkable ability of Mediterranean cultures to uphold the civilizing ideal of convivencia, "living together." Now available in paperback, The Great Sea is the definitive account of perhaps the most vibrant theater of human interaction in history.

Fans of Far from the Tree, We Are Okay and Emergency Contact will love this epic, utterly unforgettable contemporary novel about a lost shipwreck, a missing piece of family history, and weathering the storms of life. The Larkin family isn't just lucky—they persevere. At least that's what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn't drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer. But wrecks seem to run in the family: Tall, funny, musical Violet can't stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life. Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family's missing piece—the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lain hidden in a watery grave for over a century. She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes—and the bridges she builds along the way—may be the start of something like survival. Epic, funny, and sweepingly romantic, The Last True Poets of the Sea is an astonishing debut about the strength it takes to swim up from a wreck.

The goal of this collection of the greatest sea adventure novels is to awake your lust of voyage, your sense of adventure and the joy of discovery. Content: Captain Charles Johnson: The History of Pirates R. L. Stevenson: Treasure Island Jack London: The Sea Wolf The Mutiny of the Elsinore A Son of the Sun Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe Captain Singleton Tobias Smollett: The Adventures of Roderick Random Walter Scott: The Pirate Frederick Marryat: Mr. Midshipman Easy Masterman Ready; Or, The Wreck of the "Pacific" Edgar Allan Poe: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket James Fenimore Cooper: The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea The Red Rover Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale Miles Wallingford Homeward Bound; Or, The Chase: A Tale of the Sea Thomas Mayne Reid: The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea Victor Hugo: Toilers of the Sea Herman Melville: Redburn White-Jacket Moby Dick Benito Cereno R. M. Ballantyne: The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean Fighting the Whales Jules Verne: The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras In Search of the Castaways; Or, The Children of Captain Grant 20 000 Leagues under the Sea Dick Sand: A Captain at Fifteen An Antarctic Mystery L. Frank Baum: Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea Randall Parrish: Wolves of the Sea Charles Boardman Hawes: The Dark Frigate The Mutineers Joseph Conrad: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' Lord Jim Typhoon The Shadow Line The Arrow of Gold Rudyard Kipling: Captains Courageous Ralph Henry Barbour: The Adventure Club Afloat Rafael Sabatini: Captain Blood The Sea-Hawk Jeffery Farnol: Black Bartlemy's Treasure Martin Conisby's Vengeance Henry De Vere Stacpoole: The Blue Lagoon The Garden of God

The Shipwreck of the Empress of Ireland was the most horrible marine disaster in Canadian maritime history. Having taken place two years after the Titanic sinking, the Empress of Ireland had more than enough lifeboats onboard, yet the passengers didn't have time to use them as the boat foundered in only 14 minutes. Besides the history of the Empress of Ireland, Logan Marshall collected the most spectacular maritime disasters of different times in one book.

Drawing on oral histories, diaries, correspondence, postwar testimony from both American and Japanese participants, and interviews with survivors, Thomas provides this riveting account of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, the culminating battle of the war in the Pacific. Photos.