78 books like The Deep

I’m recommending this book because of its subject matter. A virus. After what’s happened in the world recently with Covid, why not believe this could happen? A disease that makes you think someone is trying to kill you, so you have to kill them first. It’s similar to being paranoid. The author of this book has written a few sequels that follow the main character’s journey. A journey that took the person from working a normal day to thinking people were now the enemy. 

If I had to use one word to describe The Rats it would be brutal.

I say this not simply because of the savage depictions of gore and other intense imagery conjured by Herbert throughout, but also the blunt and grim depictions of working-class 1970s London.

This book is so much more than a tale of man-eating monsters. I found it to be a scathing critique of social decay and the prerequisite neglect that gives rise to such conditions. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was walking into and that is why it has stayed with me. Consider yourself warned. I wish I had been.

This is always the first one that leaps to mind for me when I’m thinking of a relentlessly paced novel that is nonetheless extremely well written. It’s a simple yet relatable premise, which to me makes it all the more horrifying. Smith is a master of economy here, as he keeps the plot moving (with no chapter breaks!) throughout, yet his style is a fairly literary one and he develops the characters well.

Joe Hill is a masterful storyteller.

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but The Fireman has it all––a pandemic that causes its afflicted to spontaneously combust (called Dragonscale because Spinal-Tap Drummer Disease was too long), a plucky pregnant nurse determined to have a healthy baby in spite of the odds (which includes an unhinged husband and a blood-thirsty post-apocalyptic death squad), a commune that has figured out a way to live with the disease, and a lone wolf that wears a fireman’s jacket who has somehow learned how to control his fire.

The characters are so real they still live rent free in my head. I read it during the COVID lockdown and the parallels were both scary and hopeful. 

Tightwads on the Loose is another honest and well-written account of a couple’s ups and downs, in this case while cruising in the Pacific for seven years; only one year less than my husband and I traveled on our sailboat.

This enticing story also has a lot of parallels with my life: the couple’s age, their sense of adventure, their frugal means, their full-time commitment to their boat for many years, their need to make money, and some of the geographical and cultural experiences. Recognizing experiences and personality traits while reading this book made me enjoy it better.

Luckily, Wendy and her partner did not have to endure numerous dramatic life-altering events. Tightwads on the Loose is an easy-to-read sailing memoir that I highly recommend. 

Imagine, if you will: the world’s tallest mountain suddenly appears in the middle of the ocean. Where did it come from? What is its purpose? And what happens when dumb, curious humans (a natural but very dangerous combination) decide to go investigate?

They certainly don’t have fun! But the reader will because this horror novel is so wonderfully weird that I was gobsmacked by the time I finished. You can’t be sad when you’re wondering if there are monsters in the snow…

A true story of love, loss, and survival at sea. The author’s book cover pretty much tells the true story. There you see two lovers, their heads bowed, and below their profiles the wreckage of a dismasted sailboat, a solitary female figure searching the now calm but empty horizon—the aftermath of pounding rain, gigantic seas, and 140-knot winds. One critic wrote, "this book is life-affirming, a saga of human survival, a tale of loss and victory, proof of the resilience of the human spirit." I totally agree. Be ready to shed a tear or two and maybe read all night. Hollywood made a movie of this book, so it must be a good read.

For the uninitiated sailor, the definition of terms at the back matter is excellent, and learn what happens to a 44’ sailboat in a hurricane. It ain’t pretty, but it is inspiring.

A small lifeboat is spotted off the coast of Chile in 1821, below the gunnels skeletal men cling to a pile of human bones. Nathaniel Philbrick opens his National Book Award-winning story with an almost incomprehensibly brutal scene and rarely takes a breath for the remaining 300-odd pages. Considered to be the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby Dick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is the true story of a ship stove in by a whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and the harrowing survival of some of its crew. 

A book that falls between Lummis and Steinbeck chronologically is William Francis Butler’s The Wild North Land: Being the Story of a Winter Journey, with Dogs, Across Northern North America, an account of his retracing of the route of the 18th-century Scottish explorer Alexander McKenzie who traversed much of Canada from Lake Chipewyan in Alberta to the Pacific Ocean. Butler had a dog team whose leader was Cerf-Vola, who distinguished himself for his sagacity and strength. Ultimately, Butler retired him from sled duty to dog companion. That relationship did not prevent Butler from giving the dog to an acquaintance when he returned to England, saying that it broke his heart when he had to lay aside his emotions for “the sterner stuff of civilization.”

It is the dream of many indigenous residents of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota to visit—at least once during a lifetime—the remote "northern islands" of the 400-mile archipelago that comprises the Mariana Islands. High school student Dennis Chan fulfilled that dream as his prize for winning an essay contest. The contest—and the winner's participation in a week-long, first-of-its-kind ocean expedition—was timed to coincide with the Bush administration's designation of a 95,000sqare mile swath of the Western Pacific Ocean as an official Marine National Monument. Dennis, with the help of activist and blogger Angelo Villagomez, chronicled and published Our Northern Islands, an account (with photos) of the team's once-in-a-lifetime adventure!