Audio book descriptionIt's been two years since John Spencer and his father were shipwrecked and nearly murdered by unscrupulous scavengers. Now the Spencers have a new ship, the Dragon, and 16-year-old John is elated to be making the new schooner's maiden voyage to London. Not long out to sea, John realizes that the captain and crew of the Dragon are not who they pretended to be. Instead they are smugglers, steering their own course, and prepared to kill anyone who tries to stop them. Leaving a trail of bloodshed and violence, these ruthless pirates have no intention of leaving any witnesses to their crimes. If John is to survive, it will be by his own steady wit and a stroke of good luck.
Audio book descriptionRichard Henry Dana referred to this book as "a voice from the sea". It influenced Conrad and Melville, and has become a maritime classic that has inspired legions of men with a passion for the sea. Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. (Hence the city name Dana Point.) Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.
Audio book descriptionIn stories that are more personal than any that she's written before, Alice Munro transforms her family's history into gloriously imagined fiction. A young boy is taken to Edinburgh's Castle Rock, where his father assures him that on a clear day he can…
Audio book descriptionRichard Henry Dana called this book a "a voice from the sea". It had an influence on both Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville, both of whom sang its praises. Dana was a law student at Harvard College who decided, in 1834, to take a break from his studies in order to experience the "real world" by signing on as a common sailor for a two year voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. He kept a journal which he turned into a book after the voyage. In it he gives a vivid and detailed account of his fantastic voyage. The book is many things: a history, travelogue, a social documentary and an adventure story. W. Clark Russell, one of the best writers of sea-stories in English, called it "the greatest sea-book that was ever written in any language", and Ralph Waldo Emerson said, it "possesses...the romantic charm of Robinson Crusoe ".
