100 books like Far Tortuga

Taking as its title a line from the sonnet William Wordsworth wrote in 1802 in honour of the then imprisoned Toussaint Louverture, Julius S Scott’s work – like that of Carolyn Fick – gives us a powerful sense of just how revolutionary the Haitian Revolution was. Focusing on how sailors, runaway slaves, soldiers, and others spread revolutionary ideas of the Radical Enlightenment across the Caribbean during the 1790s, Scott gives us another brilliant ‘history from below’, full of inspiring examples of internationalism. Leaders of other slave revolts across the Caribbean took on names like ‘Toussaint’, while even the English radical Thomas Paine came to inspire Francophone blacks in this period – such as the imprisoned ‘John Paine’ detained by British authorities in colonial Jamaica in 1793.

In the Eye of All Trade is a gigantic book. Do not let the book’s size scare you. It tells the history of Bermuda, and the greater Caribbean, from a maritime perspective. In six chapters, Jarvis traces how Bermuda transitioned from tobacco to maritime society. If you stick with it, you will uncover how Bermudian seafarers traveled as far as Belize to facilitate an inter-island trade in salt, mahogany, and even turtles. Bermudian success rested on adaptability to their isolated location.

The Windward Road is a whimsical yet eye-opening account of the lesser-explored communities who hunted and ate turtles along the Caribbean coast of Central America and islands in the Caribbean Sea. Although Archie Carr was a renowned herpetologist, he was also a superb storyteller. His adventures will undoubtedly make you laugh, squirm, and empathize with the turtles and the communities that hunted them.

This book is a profound meditation on human resilience that never fails to move me. I'm constantly in awe of Hemingway's ability to weave so much meaning into such a deceptively simple tale. The way Santiago's unwavering determination shines through, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, resonates deeply with me.

I find myself returning to this book time and time again, drawing inspiration from the old man's quiet strength and dignity. The vivid portrayal of man's relationship with nature—both its beauty and its harsh realities—leaves me breathless. What I love most is how Hemingway captures the essence of the human spirit in Santiago's struggle, reminding me that true victory lies not in the outcome but in the perseverance of the journey.

This book made me shudder. 

Three families on a cruise go ashore in Central America. Then the unthinkable happens: their children vanish. Thankfully, I’ve never experienced that particular nightmare, but years ago my four-year-old son went AWOL for about five minutes while we were at the airport. I was a quivering blob of panic until kiddo turned up safe and sound. Of course, for the parents in this story, the terror stretches on for much longer than five minutes—and, believe me, you wouldn’t want it any other way. The unrelenting tension is just one of the elements that make this novel such a compelling read.

This is a powerful book; in beautiful poems the author, Jorge Argueta, describes the journey of children and their families who are looking for better opportunities and big dreams in a new place.

Why are young people leaving their country to walk to the United States to seek a new, safe home? Over 100,000 such children have left Central America. This book of poetry helps us to understand why and what it is like to be them.

Prehistoric people outside of Europe are often assumed to be "people without history," as anthropologist Eric Wolf called them. Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube's book is exciting because it uses the recent decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs to reconstruct the lives of dozens of Maya rulers. At least some of the millions of ancient Maya have now names and a history. Their great art and architecture can be linked to artists who made them and to nobles who commissioned them.

Critically underrated and largely unknown but described by up-and-coming writer Stephen King (in 1983) as “the Jane Austen of the political espionage story,” Ross Thomas was rumoured to have been an ex-spook himself. For those that haven’t read him, the best way I can describe his writing is: hilarious, clever, cynical, and like Elmore Leonard had a baby with Graham Greene.

Missionary Stew sees political fundraiser, Draper Haere, and “almost-Pulitzer winning” journalist, Morgan Citron, wrapped up in a caper involving the CIA, cocaine traffickers, Latin American generals, and corrupt US officials, all trying to fund a coup in a fictional Central American country. A storyline that might sound like it’s based on a true story—the Iran-Contra Affair. The only hitch is Missionary Stew was published in 1983 while Iran-Contra first came to light in 1985. Prophetic or insider knowledge?    

How did a U.S. priest and nun who went to Guatemala to convert the poor to “proper” Catholicism and to fight communism join a revolutionary movement?

The married couple Thomas and Marjorie Melville explain how they shared the anti-communist views of the U.S. government and the Catholic Church but living among the poor led them to question both institutions’ roles in supporting inequality in Guatemala. At the time of the book’s publication, 1970, the two were in jail as part of the Catonsville Nine. They, along with other Catholics, broke into a Maryland draft board and poured homemade napalm on stolen files to protest U.S. imperialism, including in Vietnam, and the Catholic Church’s support for it.

With this “traveloir,” Mary Morris showed me how to do it: How to travel alone as a single woman when you didn’t have a plan or an agenda; how to write about people and places that bring them alive; how to find your own story in your travels and in your writing.

Mary Morris published this book in 1989, the year before I set off on my own—a (much older) single woman traveling without a plan or agenda. As I opened the yellowed pages again, after many years, I read this line: “I settled into loneliness once again.” Next year I’ll be traveling to San Miguel de Allende, one of the settings in Nothing to Declare. I may take this book with me and read it again.