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438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea
Jonathan Franklin · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorIn the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
Hampton Sides · 480 pages
A dramatic account of the ill-fated 19th-century naval expedition to the North Pole cites the contributions of German cartographer August Peterman, New York Herald owner James Gordon Bennett and famed naval officer George Washington De Long in the team's efforts to survive brutal environmental conditions.
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea
Sebastian Junger · 256 pages
It was the storm of the century, boasting waves over one hundred feet high --- a tempest created by so rare a combination of factors that meteorologists deemed it "the perfect storm." When it struck in October 1991, there was a virtually no warning. "She's comin; on, boys, and she's comin' on strong." radioed Captain Billy Tyne of the Andrew Gail off the coast of Nova Scotia, and soon afterward th
The Ice Master
Jennifer Niven · 402 pages
It was to be the greatest and most elaborate Arctic expedition in history, with the largest scientific staff ever taken on such a journey. It's leader, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, was celebrated for his studies of Eskimo life and, with this mission, hoped to find evidence that proved his staunchly held belief that there was a last unexplored continent, hidden beneath the vast polar ice cap. In June 191
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Laura Hillenbrand · 514 pages
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Se
A Marriage At Sea
Sophie Elmhirst
In 1972, an incident with a breaching whale turns a couple’s dream of sailing on a boat into a monthslong struggle for survival on a raft.
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Erik Larson · 464 pages
It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
Gabriel Garcia Marquez · 106 pages
In 1955, Garcia Marquez was working for El Espectador, a newspaper in Bogota, when in February of that year eight crew members of the Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were washed overboard and disappeared. Ten days later one of them turned up, barely alive, on a deserted beach in northern Colombia. This book, which originally appeared as a series of newspaper articles, is Garcia Marquez's account of
Overboard!: A True Blue-water Odyssey of Disaster and Survival
Michael Tougias · 212 pages
Working on the Edge: Surviving In the World's Most Dangerous Profession: King Crab Fishing on Alaska's High Seas
Spike Walker · 279 pages
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and The Endurance
Jennifer Armstrong · 139 pages
A very comprehensive account of one of the most important scientific and cultural expeditions in the western world--the third exploration of Antarctica, in 1914. This text captures the emotions, strengths and weaknesses of the 28-man crew as individuals, their trials and conflicts, and gives an excellent account of the difficulties that through collective will they conquered. The conditions they f
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
Jon Krakauer · 371 pages
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10,1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had b
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
Nathaniel Philbrick · 320 pages
In 1819, the 238-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage to hunt whales. Fifteen months later, the Essex was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale.
The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue
Michael Tougias, Casey Sherman · 224 pages
Look no further for the real-life adventure of the year! The Finest Hours is a rousing page-turner, a fascinating history, and an inspiring ode to the courage and professionalism of men who face bitter winds and black mountainous seas... all to do a dangerous job. Put it on the shelf next to The Perfect Storm. That's where it belongs -- William Martin, New York Times Best Selling author of Cape Co
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
Alfred Lansing · 282 pages
Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England, in August 1914. The ship became locked inside an island of ice, and was later crushed. This tale of survival by Shackleton and all 27 of his men for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctice seas defined heroism.
The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst
Nicholas Tomalin, Ron Hall · 317 pages
"In early 1968, desperate entrepreneur Donald Crowhurst was trying to sell a nautical navigation device he had developed when he saw that the Sunday Times would be sponsoring the Golden Globe Race, the first ever solo, round-the-world sailing competition. An avid amateur sailor, Crowhurst sensed a marketing opportunity and shocked the world by entering the competition using an untested trimaran of
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
Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
Joan Druett · 284 pages
Telling the true story of two similar shipwreck tragedies that have drastically different outcomes, award-winning maritime historian Druett tells a gripping cautionary tale about leadership, endurance, human ingenuity, and the tenuous line between order and chaos.
A Night to Remember
Walter Lord · 209 pages
She was the world's biggest-ever ship. A luurious miracle of twentieth-century technology, the Titanic was equipped with the most ingenious safety devices of the time. Yet on a moonlit night in 1912, the "unsinkable" Titanic raced across the glassy Atlantic on her maiden voyage, with only twenty lifeboats for 2,207 passengers. A Night to Remember is the gut-wrenching, minute-by-minute account of h
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free
Hector Tobar · 309 pages
Relates the experiences of the thirty-three men who endured entrapment beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days during the San José mine collapse outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010.
Life of Pi
Yann Martel · 336 pages
After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan… and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary works of fiction in recent years.
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway · 127 pages
Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the tale of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. This story of heroic endeavour won Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature. It stands as a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements.
South by Java Head
Alistair MacLean · 272 pages
A classic World War 2 adventure set in south-east Asia. February, 1942: Singapore lies burning and shattered, defenceless before the conquering hordes of the Japanese Army, as the last boat slips out of the harbour into the South China Sea. On board are a desperate group of people, each with a secret to guard, each willing to kill to keep that secret safe. Who or what is the dissolute Englishman,
A Descent into the Maelstrom
Edgar Allan Poe · 43 pages
"A Descent into the Maelström" is an 1841 short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. In the tale, a man recounts how he survived a shipwreck and a whirlpool. It has been grouped with Poe's tales of ratiocination and also labeled an early form of science fiction.