Maritime Non-Fiction

Winner of the 2017 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award's Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing In the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, HMS Erebus undertook two of the most ambitious naval expeditions of all time. On the first, she ventured further south than any human had ever been. On the second, she vanished with her 129-strong crew in the wastes of the Canadian Arctic. Her...

"Non-fiction it may be, but it contains all the tension of a thriller" Stuart Alexander, The Independent The Vendee Globe is a 27,000 mile, single-handed yacht race through the world's most treacherous seas. A four month journey where the sailors pit themselves against icebergs, hurricane-force winds and waves the height of six-storey buildings. On 3 November 1996 sixteen sailors, including Tony Bullimore...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be given your own remote islands? Thirty years ago it happened to Adam Nicolson. Aged 21, Nicolson inherited the Shiants, three lonely Hebridean islands set in a dangerous sea off the Isle of Lewis. With only a stone bothy for accommodation and half a million puffins for company, he found himself in charge of one of the most beautiful places on earth. The st...

The story of Britain's colourful maritime past seen through the changing fortunes of the Cornish port of Falmouth. Within the space of few years, during the 1560s and 1570s, a maritime revolution took place in England that would contribute more than anything to the transformation of the country from a small rebel state on the fringes of Europe into a world power. Until then, it was said, there was only one ...

Professor Aronnax, his faithful servant, Conseil, and the Canadian harpooner, Ned Land, begin an extremely hazardous voyage to rid the seas of a little-known and terrifying sea monster. However, the 'monster' turns out to be the giant submarine, Nautilus, commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo, by whom they are soon held captive. So begins not only one of the great adventure classics by Jules Verne, the '...

In the tradition of Dava Sobel's 'Longitude' comes sailing expert David Barrie's compelling and dramatic tale of invention and discovery - an eloquent elegy to one of the most important navigational instruments ever created, and the daring mariners who used it to explore, conquer, and map the world. This is the dramatic story of an instrument that changed history. Built around David Barrie's own transatlant...

WINNER OF THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2017 It's early 1945 and a group of people trek across Germany, bound together by their desperation to reach the ship that can take them away from the war-ravaged land. Four young people, each haunted by their own dark secret, narrate their unforgettable stories. Fans of The Book Thief or Helen Dunmore's The Siege will be totally absorbed. This inspirational novel is b...

There's so much we don't know about what lies deep beneath the ocean's surface - and the time to find out is growing increasingly precious...

On Friday 14 June 1968 Suhaili, a tiny ketch, slipped almost unnoticed out of Falmouth harbour steered by the solitary figure at her helm, Robin Knox-Johnston.

"A remarkable and powerful book, the rarest of things... Nicolson is unique as a writer... I loved it" Edmund de Waal "Miraculous ... An utterly fascinating glimpse of a watery world we only thought we knew" Philip Hoare Few places are as familiar as the shore - and few as full of mystery and surprise. How do sandhoppers inherit an inbuilt compass from their parents? How do crab...

'Gow reinvents what it means to be a guardian of the countryside.'-Guardian 'Gow has a fire in his belly. We need more like him.'-BBC Wildlife Magazine Waterstones Best Nature Writing Book of 2020 'Bringing Back the Beaver is a hilarious, eccentric and magnificent account of a struggle . . . to reintroduce a species crucial to the health of our ecosystems.'-George Monbiot Bringing Back the Beave...

'Fascinating . . . Shot through with fresh insights . . . No previous biography has attempted anything so comprehensive.' Observer Nelson is a thrilling new appraisal of Horatio Nelson, the greatest practitioner of naval command the world has ever seen. It explores the professional, personal, intellectual and practical origins of one man's genius, to understand how the greatest warrior that Britain has eve...

with Bruce Beveridge, Scott Andrews and Art Braunschweiger

Breverton's Nautical Curiosities is about ships, people and the sea. However, unlike many other nautical compendiums, the focus of this book is on the unusual, the overlooked or the downright extraordinary. Thus, someone most of us do not know, Admiral William Brown, is given equal coverage to Admiral Nelson. Without Admiral Brown releasing Garibaldi, modern Italy might not exist. And without the barely kno...

Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the sinking of the whale ship Essex by an enraged sperm whale and also describes in detail what happened to the twenty crew members who survived. Having escaped the whale attack they spent three months drifting in small boats before being rescued. Philbrick speculates about the tensions that must have existed between these men, especially when desperation forced them t...

"Empires of the Sea" shows the Mediterranean as a majestic and bloody theatre of war. Opening with the Ottoman victory in 1453 it is a breathtaking story of military crusading, Barbary pirates, white slavery and the Ottoman Empire - and the larger picture of the struggle between Islam and Christianity. Coupled with dramatic set piece battles, a wealth of riveting first-hand accounts, epic momentum and a ter...

It has been described as the greatest epic voyage in modern Irish history. Tim Severin and his companions built a boat using only techniques and materials available in the sixth-century A.D, when St Brendan was supposed to have sailed to America. The vessel comprised forty-nine ox hides stitched together in a patchwork and stretched over a wooden frame. This leather skin was only a quarter of an inch thick....

When Marcia and David Pirie abandoned their careers and sailed off in their home-built ketch Moongazer, They embarked on a journey that took them around the world, and became a way of life for nine years. Travellers on a Trade Wind covers the highlights of the journey.

From Cnut to D-Day, the history and science of the unceasing tide is explored for the first time. Half of the world's population lives in coastal regions lapped by tidal waters. Yet how little most of us know about the tide - a key force on our planet that has altered the course of history and will transform our future. Our ability to predict and understand the tide depends on centuries of science, from ...

John Kretschmer is sailing's practical philosopher - as much a doer as a thinker. And that is the overarching theme of this chronicle of a sailing life. Often amusing, sometimes poignant, occasionally terrifying but always inspiring, his deeply personal account is a welcome reminder of the good life waiting at sea.