5. The Death Ship by B. Traven
Yes, the same guy who gave us Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The nameless narrator ships on the Yorikke…and soon wishes he hadn’t. A chilling allegory that would give Joseph Conrad nightmares.
4. Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl
Heyerdahl tried to prove that South American Indians could have migrated to Polynesia. The odyssey of him
and his crew on a balsa raft stands with Slocum’s voyage (see above) as one of the all-time great true-life sea epics.
3. The Open Boat by Stephen Crane
“None of them knew the color of the sky.” Has any other sea story an opening line like that? Crane, a war correspondent in Cuba, lived the story he so memorably tells here, a concentrated little epic of survival at sea.
2. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana
Shipping aboard a New England clipper for health reasons, landlubber Dana discovers the grim truth of shipboard brutality. His classic uncovered the hellish underside of 18th Century ship life.
1. Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum
Canadian Slocum became one of the last of the great American seaman, by sailing his sloop, the Spray, in an unaided circumnavigation. His book is still one of the greatest true-life sea adventures ever penned.
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