The most recommended books about sea captains

It centers on and celebrates becoming—molting from one skin to another. For Ishmael this is a transition from a tired and limiting worldview to something fresh and alive.

The “bosom buddies” at the heart of the novel, Ishmael and Queequeg, seem comprised of opposites, but Ishmael’s etherealizing is grounded by Queequeg’s pragmatic ingenuity in ways that quiet and expand the young pagan-Presbyterian’s buzzing, anxious mind. Theirs is a friendship of succor, probably sex, and survival—all of it shadowed by the delusional obsessions of their mad captain.

I love true stories of strong women who defy our expectations. Iceland’s fishing industry in the early 1800s would seem to be a man’s world.

But Captain Thurídur was one of many women who rowed out into the icy North Atlantic in open boats—and in winter, no less—to catch the fish that powered Iceland’s colonial economy.

Haunted by a ghost, a believer in elves and omens, Thurídur could read the waves and weather like no one else. Her catches were legendary. Best, in her 50 years at sea, not one of her crewmembers drowned. 

The story of Robert Smalls is one of the lesser-known fantastic tales of the American Civil War.

Smalls was an enslaved man in South Carolina, but such a skilled boat pilot that he was left in charge of a heavily armed Confederate Navy ship, the Planter, while its captain and crew were ashore in Charleston. Audaciously, Smalls planned to steal away not only the ship, but also its entire enslaved crew and their family members. Seventeen people in all.

On the night of May 13, 1862 he did just that. Disguised wearing the captain’s cap, Confederate flag flying from the Planter’s mast, Smalls steamed toward the Union blockade and surrendered the ship. Lineberry brings Smalls and his intrepid feats to life, which only began with the escape and continued with his war service, operating the re-christened U.S.S. Planter as the Union’s first black ship pilot.

I found this one in a charity shop and read it in a day. It was a while after that I saw the tv series, and a while after that the movie. And it’s another one I still have in my bookshelves.

It’s another story about finding your place in the world, but at the same time, it’s about a timid widow, mother of two, finding herself through the mentorship of the ghost of a well travelled sailor. One who’s there waiting for her at the end of her life, not her bloody husband! 

Most people like London’s The Sea-Wolf for the protagonist, Humprhey Van Weyden, who tries to teach Wolf Larson (the Sea Wolf) to be moral. But I actually think The Sea Wolf actually is moral to begin with. He uses a sense of expediency to make his decisions, but even there, along the way of the voyage, we see changes in him as he reconsiders Van Weyden. Ultimately, it’s an incredible journey of multiple characters in the book finding their truest selves.

Have you ever wished you knew what your pet was thinking? That you could communicate with them with words or even with the power of your mind? I know I have.

This book is basically a chronicle of the Napoleonic Wars…but with dragons! When British naval Captain Will Laurence forms a bond with the dragon Temeraire, it changes both of their lives. The two are pressed into service, fighting against Napoleon’s own squad of dragon-riders.

The air battle scenes are thrilling, but the real heart of the book is the bond between Will and Temeraire. It is a daring adventure tale but also a fabulous, cozy read. Reading it makes me wish I had a dragon pal that I was telepathically bonded to (though I’m not too keen to have to square up with Napolean). 

I met Douglas Reeman only once but I owe him a debt since he inspired me on that occasion to start writing seriously. He served as a Royal Navy officer in WW2 and saw extensive service in destroyers and motor torpedo boats. He survived a sinking, during which he was injured, and was wounded again off Normandy. He wrote many novels about war at sea—those of WW1 and WW2 under his own name, and as “Alexander Kent” about the Age of Fighting Sail. They’re all splendidly exciting reads in which fortitude, duty, and loyalty—to one’s ship, crew, and country—and the brutal realities of war are portrayed with a great feel of realism. He claimed HMS Saracen as his favourite—and, when read, it’s easy to see why!

One of my all-time favorite stories set on the high seas with a daring sea captain and a worthy heroine. The story involves two competing shipping companies in 19th century England, and two captains (the English Earl, Captain Sutherland, and the American, Captain Lassiter). Each must win the Great Race from London to Sydney to survive.

When Lassiter is imprisoned, his daughter, Nicole, who has been raised at sea decides to enter the race for him. Nicole is attracted to the handsome Sutherland, who when he first encounters her in a dockside bar, thinks she's a whore. Circumstances make them enemies. When sabotage of her ship forces her to join him on his ship, her spirit and his wall of stone collide. The result? A fast-paced story that grabs you.

Another of my cheat picks, but I feel they are both following the spirit of the list (and, more importantly, my own enthusiasm).

Here is a maritime fantasy set in a blustery region much colder than the tropical Caribbean. No, this is grim-up-north fiction – and I wasn’t surprised one bit to find the author is from Yorkshire.

The Tide Child series is a uniquely fascinating one, set in a dark, matriarchal world, dense with rotting pink and purple plants, where the “corpselights” of sacrificed children hang from ships built from the bones of sea dragons, where slavery is rife, and the faces of crews are scoured by wind and freezing brine.
Don’t expect a great deal of joy in these books. But they are nonetheless adventurous, fantastical, and exciting. I just wish they’d get a bit warmer... brrrrr.

Joan Druett is the dean of authors writing about women at sea. Her books bring to life not only the pirates and transgressive women, but the wives and daughters of sea captains who sailed alongside their men and shared the ship’s command and the global adventures. When I want good, historical data I turn to Druett and the tidbits she incorporates into her writing bring dry historical figures to life.