The most recommended books set on a cruise ship

What struck me most was the use of simple language to portray powerful intimacy and connection between human and animal, and by extension, environment. Murphy’s humorous dialogue, together with sparing, often ironic, descriptions, struck deep into my heart. The play starts in 1535 on an ice shelf up north—when an Inuk widow risks her life to save a lost one-eared polar bear cub on an ice floe, and adopts him. In the last scene five hundred years later in the oily waters of the Northwest Passage, the same bear—starving and cruelly injured by eco-tourists on a cruise ship—struggles to keep from drowning. No one on the ship cares. No one weeps for him. But I did. I wept for him and for his world destroyed by apathy. 

I came across this eye-opening book when I started out as a cruise enrichment speaker and sought insight into life on board a ship. It’s written by an ex-crew member and tells his story of a year working on a cruise line.

I’m sure there’s some poetic license taken, and the author’s experience doesn’t match mine, but I found it both fascinating and very funny.

I'm a sucker for survival stories, but I'm a durn fool for expertly written survival stories. The truth is, he had me at 438, and the rest could have been downhill coasting.

This fine writer, though, did not rest on laurels. He did what a story like this required: great reporting despite language barriers, detailed professional psychological/survivalist commentary at correctly curated junctures, evidence backing up the story, a detailed map of the unreal journey, and the mental state of the protagonist throughout and after.

The story is also strongly linear, which gives it forward momentum, which is key for a story like this, because you need to move forward to survive, and not look back and dwell on the past. This is a great story in great hands.

My final choice is a rollicking 900-page blockbuster for those lazy sea days. I’ve read it three times now and plan to read it again one day. I adore the wonderful love story between Edouard and Helene, even though I know the mind-blowing ending.

The plot spans 35 years and several countries, including the UK, the USA, and France, which are all vividly described. It’s full of secrets, which allowed me to immerse myself in the characters’ lives. Certain locations and scenes stay in my mind after each reading, and I never want to finish and say goodbye to the characters.

Any aficionado follower of our music is aware that – for all the lists of books on jazz, worldwide nowadays – in truth the very first nations to study seriously and passionately this extraordinary music called jazz were the European countries.   They discovered in the 1930s the magic of those Black orchestras that entertained the wealthy cruise ships travelling from the United States to France and Europe. The local musicians welcomed their Black colleagues who became their teachers. While in the United States jazz music was considered just another form of dance music, in Europe, it was examined, dissected, catalogued, and played with great passion.

The very first world book ever published on jazz came from Belgium in 1932, called At the Frontiers of Jazz by Robert Goffin (in the French language). Followed the famous Le Hot Jazz by Panassiè in 1934, today also translated into English. The dam was… show more.

In my previous life, I would have loved to have traveled with my wife in one of the great ocean liners in their heyday. The glorious food, fine wines, and the general ambiance are wonderfully evoked in this book, and a well-chosen selection of recipes, contemporary photographs, and original menu cards enhances the text.

Your decision will be just what recipe to try first.

Fast-paced, exciting, with enough twists to keep me reading without a single break – this is one of my all-time favourites by prolific author Alistair MacLean. I found myself chuckling and, in the next instant, holding my breath as the First Officer has to outwit terrorists who have taken over the tramp carrier cum cruise ship “Campari.” But what I enjoy most is the mix of humour and lightheartedness that balance the high octane thrills which are grounded in meticulous research.

More usually writing about crime, this writer here takes a step away in this unusual style. I was hooked from the first page as a woman makes an Atlantic voyage on a liner, waking to find she is the only person on the ship; the other passengers and the crew have vanished.

I loved the mystery, and the peril increasing through what is a classic page-turner; somehow, the writer builds the tension and maintains the credibility as the unusual solution to the mystery unfolds.

I know some readers did not get it, but I loved the thread of dark humor and wanted to cheer aloud at the end, where there is a final twist on the very last page (don’t look!).

I absolutely love this quirky book in which the author travels to each of the places mentioned in the shipping forecast, one of Britain’s best-loved broadcasting institutions. I delved into it with relish as I found myself sailing through many of these myself on cruises to Norway, Iceland, UK and other countries in Western Europe.

I enjoyed the exploration of the history, geography, and culture of each shipping area. The book is packed with interesting facts and anecdotes, along with tales from people the author meets along the way. As a bonus, it’s very amusing in places!

I was immediately pulled into a world of deception, greed, and murder.

Despite being traumatized, the main character stays strong. Her description of the luxury cruise ship made me feel as if I were onboard, too. The dark twists and turns throughout this novel, along with the gaslighting of the protagonist, were intense enough that I couldn’t stop reading.

Like the heroine in the story, I was determined to unravel the truth and decide who could be trusted and who might be a cold-blooded killer. For me, this wild ride was exhilarating. But it could be a few years before I consider booking my own cruise.