The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island

My Family and Other Animals

Gerald Durrell · 285 pages

My Family and Other Animals is an autobiographical work by naturalist Gerald Durrell, telling of the part of his childhood he spent on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939.

The Outrun

Amy Liptrot · 292 pages

When Amy Liptrot returns to Orkney after more than a decade away, she is drawn back to the Outrun on the sheep farm where she grew up. Now she finds herself standing at the cliff edge, trying to come to terms with what happened to her in England. Spending early mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, days tracking Orkney's wildlife - puffins nesting on sea stacks, arctic terns swooping close

An Island to Oneself: The Story of Six Years on a Desert Island

Tom Neale · 255 pages

Thomas Francis "Tom" Neale (November 6, 1902 - November 27, 1977)[1] was a New Zealander bushcraft and survival enthusiast who spent much of his life in the Cook Islands and 16 years in three sessions living alone on the island of Anchorage in the Suwarrow atoll, which was the basis of this autobiography.

Papillon

Henri Charriere · 544 pages

Describes the life of a man sent to prison on a miserable island, Cayena, where escape is impossible. It is a terrible life for him but he finally escapes after much suffering.

Castaway

Lucy Irvine · 400 pages

Recounts the adventure of a couple living on an island in the Coral Sea north of Australia. Tells what happened to them emotionally after being forced to marry by the Australian government.

The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific

Paul Theroux · 530 pages

Beginning in New Zealand and coming to shore in Hawaii, the author explores fifty-one islands along the way in a collapsible kayak.

The Water is Wide

Pat Conroy · 260 pages

"A young white teacher goes to an island off the coast of South Carolina to teach a group of functionally illiterate black children. Yamacraw Island is backward and primitive, a world for the most part left untouched by the 20th century....By ignoring the textbooks and concentrating on meaningful situations and dialogue...he begins to make headway. He also, unfortunately arouses the ire of the pow

Onions in the Stew

Betty MacDonald · 256 pages

The author describes how, along with her husband and daughters, she set to work making a life on a rugged island in Puget Sound, a ferry-ride from Seattle.

Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters

Violet Jessop, John Maxtone-Graham · 238 pages

"Violet Jessop was probably the only rescued person with a toothbrush after the Britannic struck a mine and sank. But then she had been on the Titanic four years earlier and remembered what she had missed...". "In 1934, she wrote her memoirs. After a childhood in Argentina and formative years in England, she became a stewardees aboard a variety of passenger ships. She was there when Titanic sides

In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic

Valerian Albanov · 285 pages

Iron Coffins: A personal account of the German U-boat battles of World War II

Herbert A. Werner · 366 pages

Because I was one of the few U-boat commanders who fought through most of the war and who managed to survive, I felt it was my duty to my fallen comrades to set the record straight. Very much to the point, duty was the first and last word in the lexicon of the U-boat men; and, remarks to the contrary notwithstanding, we did our duty with a correct gallantry unsurpassed in any branch of service on

A Pirate Looks at Fifty

Jimmy Buffett · 420 pages

Japanese Destroyer Captain

Tameichi Hara · 310 pages

**(from back cover)** This highly regarded war memoir was a best seller in both Japan and the United States during the 1960s and has long been treasured by historians for its insights into the Japanese side of the surface war in the Pacific. The author was a survivor of more than one hundred sorties against the Allies and was known throughout Japan as the "Unsinkable Captain." A hero to his count

Out of the Depths: An Unforgettable WWII Story of Survival, Courage, and the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis

Edgar Harrell, David Harrell · 189 pages

"A WWII hero's courageous, inspiring true story of survival against all odds after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis"--

South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914 - 1917

Ernest Shackleton · 375 pages

In 1911 Roald Amundsen beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole, and Scott and his colleagues all died on the return journey. Ernest Shackleton, who had served with Scott on a previous expedition, decided that crossing Antarctica from sea to sea was the last great unattempted journey on the continent. His Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17 was a failure. But perhaps because it failed

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

William Finnegan · 447 pages

Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adven

A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean

Tori Murden McClure · 292 pages

During June 1998, Tori McClure set out to row across the Atlantic Ocean by herself in a 23-foot plywood boat with no motor or sail. She lost communications, but nevertheless decided to keep going, without updates on the location of the Gulf Stream and the weather--in what became the North Atlantic's worst hurricane season. When a series of violent storms nearly killed her, she had to signal for he

A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea

Richard Phillips, Stephan Talty · 286 pages

Tells the dramatic life-and-death tale of the Vermont native who, in April of 2009, was held captive on a tiny lifeboat off Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores.

Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea

Steven Callahan · 255 pages

Not Without Hope

Nick Schuyler, Jere Longman · 246 pages

A former college football star shares the story of his dramatic survival and rescue after a headline-making boating accident that left three of his friends dead, including two NFL players.

Martha's Vineyard, Isle of Dreams

Susan Branch · 368 pages

Sailing Alone Around The World

Joshua Slocum · 294 pages

Joshua Slocum, one of the most famous of American sea captains, really was the first to single-handedly circumnavigate the world. The epitome of Yankee independence, he had risen from a seaman to the captain of his own ship. Marooned in Brazil, he built a "canoe" in which he returned to America (see The Voyage of the Liberdade). At loose ends at fifty-one, he was offered an old oyster boat which h

Farthest North

Fridtjof Nansen · 544 pages

Dove

Robin Lee Graham, Derek L.T. Gill · 199 pages

Setting out in his sloop Dove to encircle the globe, a sixteen-year-old boy finds adventure and romance.