In the two years after the 1939 publication of Steinbeck's masterful The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck and his novel increasingly became the center of intense controversy and censorship. In search of a respite from the national stage, Steinbeck and his close friend, biologist Ed Ricketts, embarked on a[...]

This wonderful book explores the dramatic change in Western attitude toward the sea and seaside pleasures that occurred between 1750 and 1840. Interest in travel; the arrival of landscape painting, geology, and natural theology; fashions in medicine and the advent of the bathing-machine; the emergen[...]

The most mysterious and elusive of all sea creatures, the giant squid--at least sixty feet long and weighing nearly a ton--is also one of the largest. Yet for all its magnificent size and threatening undersea presence, Architeuthis has remained a mystery. Until now. In this marvelous and beautifully[...]

"The Worst Witch All At Sea" is a classic Worst Witch story by Jill Murphy "The Worst Witch All At Sea" is the fourth of Jill Murphy's classic, much-loved The Worst Witch series, the original story of life at a magical boarding school, perfect for 5-9 readers. Loveable but accident-prone Mildred Hub[...]

Professor Aronnax sets out in search of a dangerous sea monster, only to learn that the monster is really Captain Nemo's powerful submarine.[...]

Vigorous, self-reliant, amazingly resourceful and moral, James Fenimore Cooper's Natty Bumpo towers over and above the author's majestic descriptions of early frontier life, Indian raiders, and defenseless outposts. He is the prototype of the Western hero; his vision of man in a natural context and[...]

Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage the rumours begin, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging,[...]

The most recent novel by Margaret Drabble, The Sea Lady tells a story of first and last love, of evolution and the ebb and flow of time that gives shape to our lives. Humphrey and Ailsa meet as children by a grey, northern sea. Humphrey is quiet, serious - and will in time explore the sea's mysterie[...]

Based on the author's own vivid experiences, "The Cruel Sea" is the nail-biting story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys in World War Two. Darting back and forth across the icy North Atlantic, Compass Rose played a deadly cat and mouse game with packs of German U[...]

December, 1941. Four brothers investigate the secrets of a treasure pit on a small island in the Pacific. But a sudden death and the coming war allow its secrets to lie forgotten... Present day. Juan Cabrillo and the Oregon team have been sent to locate the remains of a crashed NASA satellite in the[...]

Her grand attempt to tell what she felt was the story of "Jane Eyre's" 'madwoman in the attic', Bertha Rochester, Jean Rhys' "Wide Sargasso Sea" is edited with an introduction and notes by Angela Smith in "Penguin Classics". Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creol[...]

In 1940 Steinbeck sailed in a sardine boat with his great friend the marine biologist, Ed Ricketts, to collect marine invertebrates from the beaches of the Gulf of California. The expedition was described by the two men in "Sea Of Cortez", published in 1941. The day-to-day story of the trip is told [...]

His first novel is a revelation ...the writing is vivid, serious and extraordinary ...wonderful". ("The Times"). "The Sea is My Brother" is Jack Kerouac's very first novel, begun shortly after his tour as a merchant sailor in 1942. Lost during his lifetime, it is an intense portrait of friendship an[...]