Ship Life

Orphaned at five, nothing held Whidden back from embarking on sea life seven years later. Serving as an apprentice, he quickly proved his worth and earned himself a mate's position by his early 20s. Graduating to third, second, and first office, he ended his career in command of, and having part-ownership of, his own vessel. Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days records a series of real events from his childhood impressions of rough and ready seamen to his thrilling and brutal experiences of war.

With Nazis bombing London every night, it's time for 13-year-old Ken to escape. He suspects his stepmother is glad to see him go, but his dad says he's one of the lucky ones - one of 90 boys and girls to ship out aboard the SS City of Benares to safety in Canada. Life aboard the luxury ship is grand-nine-course meals, new friends, and a life far from the bombs, rations, and his stepmum's glare. And after five days at sea, the ship's officers announce that they're out of danger. They're wrong.

Fifteen-year-old Amari witnesses the murder of her family and the destruction of her remote African village. She endures countless humiliations as she is beaten, branded, and forced to board a slave ship. The atrocities continue as she struggles through endless days of backbreaking work and daily degradation on a plantation.

An amazing secret has tumbled off a freight train into Carter, Georgia, and Owen Jester is the only person who knows about it. If he can simply manage to evade his grandfather’s snappish housekeeper and keep his nosy neighbor, Viola, at bay, he just might be in for the summer of a lifetime.

In Cruise Confidential, Brian David Bruns spills the dirt - or, in this case, the dirty water - on those romantic, fun-filled vacations at sea. His hilarious chronicle of the year he spent working for Carnival Cruise Lines takes listeners down into the areas where the crew works and lives, leaving listeners gasping with laughter as they're assaulted nonstop with events that range from the absurd to the utterly bizarre. Stewards fighting over food. Cutlery allowances and other nonsensical rules.

On the night of 14/15 April 1912, a supposedly unsinkable ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel in the world at the time, collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,208 people on board, only 712 were saved. The rest either drowned or froze to death. How could this 'unsinkable' vessel sink and why did so few of those aboard survive? The authors bring the tragedy to life, telling the story of the ship's design, construction, and maiden voyage.

Serial rapists. Celebrities. Naked people. Jail. And then some weird stuff happened too! Just another day on the job for the Piano Dude. If you can call “living the life” performing in exotic locations around the world an actual job. Gregg Akkerman’s life as an entertainer reads like a Cohen brothers-meets-Jimmy Buffett screenplay that never ends. Is it really just one Caribbean island and piano bar full of bizarre characters after another? Maybe that’s why he’s always smiling. You’ll find out before the book is over. A true-crime, first-person account of America’s most ...

Captain John Whidden was an American merchant sailor who sailed all over the world. He wrote this work in 1908, partly as a memoir, but also to offer a snippet of the “old sailing ship days” before major changes occurred. It is a story of a boy from New England and his various roles on ships from the age of 12 to 37. He documents the changes in the shipping industry over the 19th and into the 20th century.

Ten-year-old George Calder can't believe his luck - he and his little sister, Phoebe, are on the famous Titanic, crossing the ocean with their aunt Daisy. The ship is full of exciting places to explore, but when George ventures into the first-class storage cabin, a terrible boom shakes the entire boat. Suddenly water is everywhere, and George's life changes forever.

September is a girl who longs for adventure. When she is invited to Fairyland by a Green Wind and a Leopard, well, of course she accepts. (Mightn’t you?) But Fairyland is in turmoil, and it will take one 12-year-old girl, a book-loving dragon, and a strange and almost human boy named Saturday to vanquish an evil Marquess and restore order.

Fans of the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin stories, or the Horatio Hornblower works by C.S. Forester will love gay-youth author, Cade Jay Hathaway’s Rian and Mouse seagoing novels. Beginning with The Ship’s Boy, life in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars is depicted in these enjoyable and relatable sea stories. Told against the historical backdrop of naval life in 1807, The Ship’s Boy is as exciting as a white-knuckle trip around the Horn down in the roaring 40’s. Adrian 'Rian' Pembroke is a lad of thirteen years sailing with his family as a passenger aboard the ...

Join Chelsea, Francois, Ash, Dustin, Kelsi, and Jason as they return for their most daring expedition yet: tracking down the elusive Nantiinaq in the haunted ghost town of Portlock, Alaska. Legend has it that this desolate place was abandoned when the townsfolk fled in fear of the mysterious Nantiinaq, also known as Bigfoot. The Chugach Corporation has enlisted the expertise of Dr. Chelsea Buckley for a high-stakes mission. Their objective? To ensure Portlock's safety for redevelopment into a luxurious resort, complete with prime real estate plots for sale. Armed with state-of-the-art ...

In this second novel in the Rian and Mouse series, it is 1807 and Napoleon Bonaparte consumes all of Europe in total war. Only England and her allies stand in the way as France attempts to rule the world. Two young sailors, Adrian ‘Rian’ Pembroke and the love of his life, Richard ‘Mouse’ Jay, have readjusted to life on England’s shores after being rescued from a disaster at sea by the cutter, Cleo; as stout and as happy a ship as ever there was. Having found lodgings in London with a caring, elderly couple who practically adopt the lads as their own, Rian and Mouse set their ...

Cat brothers Cecil and Anton are as different in personality as they are in looks. Cecil, stocky and black with white patches, thirsts for seafaring adventure as he roams the docks of his harborside home, taking day trips on fishing boats when the chance comes along. Slim, gray Anton prefers listening to the sailors' shanties at the town saloon. But one day when Anton does venture to port, he's stolen off the dock, and the next thing he knows, he's at sea.

It's sink or swim for Jack and Annie when Magic Tree House whisks them off to the middle of the ocean. And that's just the beginning....

Hal and his fellow Herons have returned home to Skandia after defeating the pirate Captain Zavac and reclaiming Skandia's most prized artifact, the Andomal. With their honor restored, the Herons turn to a new mission: tracking down an old rival turned bitter enemy. Tursgud - leader of the Shark Brotherband and Hal's constant opponent - has turned from a bullying youth into a pirate and slave trader. After Tursgud captures 12 Araluen villagers to sell as slaves, the Heron crew sails into action...with the help of one of Araluen's finest Rangers!

What’s in a cloud? Did you know that water vapor is invisible and actually lighter than dry air? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather is crucial to the safety of vessels and their crews. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor’s-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it holds: global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.

"Ryōma!" tells the life story of Sakamoto Ryōma, one of the great figures in the turmoil that engulfed Japan in the years before the 1868 Meiji Restoration. The novel is a masterwork by the prolific historical novelist Shiba Ryōtarō and has sold more than 24 million copies in Japan since publication in 1966—and still counting! The novel has everything: a winning main character, an action-packed plot, swordfights, and romance, but it is also a fascinating, easy-to-digest history lesson about Japan’s response to the shocking arrival of United States Commodore Matthew Perry’s “...

You know you need to quit. You’ve spent months—maybe years—convincing yourself that it’s not that bad, that you should be grateful, that stability is more important than happiness. It’s all nonsense. Burn the Ships is the brutally honest, practical guide to walking away from a soul-sucking job and never looking back. This isn’t just about quitting—it’s about rebuilding your confidence, overcoming fear, and designing work and life on your terms. Inside, you’ll learn: ✔ How to break free from the fear of financial ruin and job scarcity ✔ How to shut down guilt and stop ...

Cruise ship life is like a soap opera, you can either watch it, be in it, or in this case do both. This is the beginning of a love story about change. FROM THE PURSER'S DESK.…. Well this is amazing, this time last month I was working in a hotel in England worrying about the bad weather, filling room nights, demanding stakeholders and an unhappy girlfriend. Thirty days later, I am standing at the bows of the largest cruise ship on the planet doing my best Leonardo DiCaprio impression sailing out of Port Everglades waving to happy strangers and listening to Enya through the outside speakers...