Looking for a seaworthy gift for my dad.

December 20, 2009 5:41 PM

Book-recommendation-filter: help me choose a book to get for my dad for Christmas.

I'm hoping somebody can recommend a book for my dad for Christmas. Growing up, I remember him reading mostly books about naval warfare (he is a former merchant seaman), World War I and II, and British Cold War spy novels. He loves anything to do with ships; his favourite movie is The Cruel Sea and he is a fan of Monsarrat's novels as well, including The Master Mariner. He also LOVES documentaries like Victory at Sea and more modern ones about naval warfare, especially in World War I and II. He's also expressed a fondness for Frederick Forsyth (especially The Shepherd). Lately, however, he's also enjoyed Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and The Road.

I had originally thought about getting him either Blood Meridian or All the Pretty Horses but I don't think he'd enjoy those as much as the McCarthy he has read. Blood Meridian is too abstract and possibly too violent, and All the Pretty Horses might be too much of a Western and maybe, for lack of a better phrase, too "American." (My dad's Irish.) As much as I love it, I don't think Moby-Dick would be up his alley either, in spite of the nautical material.

Any ideas for books I should consider? I guess it needn't necessarily be a book—interesting DVDs would work, too, but this is a supplement to another main gift so I'm hoping to keep it fairly inexpensive.

posted by synecdoche to media & arts (28 answers total)

Horatio Hornblower! It's a series of books set during the Napoleonic wars, but they were written in the 1930s. They are great fun.

Had he read Band of Brothers? My Dad loved that one.
posted by apricot at 5:48 PM on December 20, 2009

Perhaps he'd enjoy In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex? And I've never read it myself, but I've always heard great things about Master and Commander (and the rest of the books in the series).
posted by scody at 5:49 PM on December 20, 2009

I highly recommend Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death and Survival in the Merchant Marine, by Robert Frump. My father was in the merchant marine during WWII. This book made me feel what it's like to be at sea, in an unseaworthy ship. Powerful writing.
posted by Carol Anne at 6:05 PM on December 20, 2009

Does it need to be a novel? I'm currently reading the autobiography, Crash Dive: In action with HMS Safari, which gives an excellent first hand insight into a rating's life on a WW2 submarine. It's basically a diary covering the period between 1942 and 1943. Very enjoyable reading.

This Thing Of Darkness is also really good. In fact it's probably the best historical fiction I've read. It follows Capt. Fitzroy of HMS Beagle, so it features Charles Darwin heavily, but is mainly about Fitzroy. I learned a lot from this book, bits of naval history, stuff about New Zealand, the weather, South America...
posted by jonesor at 6:05 PM on December 20, 2009

Riddle of the Sands

Sharpe's Trafalgar is a page turner with a good explanation of the battle - assuming he's willing to go back that far. Might get him bitten with the Sharpe bug (the hero's sidekick is Irish, if that helps).
posted by IndigoJones at 6:07 PM on December 20, 2009

Seconding Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, set in the Napoleonic wars. (The movie "Master and Commander" was based on the first few books and was good in its way but the books are fairly different.) There's about 20 books in the series, so if he likes the first one you've got your holiday and birthday gifts squared away for the next few years!
posted by Quietgal at 6:18 PM on December 20, 2009

If he liked the post-apocalyptic-ness of The Road, he may like Alas, Babylon (Cold war apocalypse story with military bits) and/or On the Beach (post-apocalyptic story set in Australia and related to the Australian navy). I'm not describing either of these very well but basically nuclear war + military + bleak.
posted by dayintoday at 6:24 PM on December 20, 2009

He might like Thunder Below by Eugene Fluckey. I found it a fascinating and well written account of his World War II submarine service.
posted by gudrun at 6:24 PM on December 20, 2009

I recommend The Count of Monte Cristo- I found it to be a highly entertaining and enjoyable read. Although it isn't known as a nautical novel, a good portion of it takes place on a ship.
posted by emd3737 at 6:33 PM on December 20, 2009

Has he ever read Alan Furst? He writes WW2-era spy novels set in Europe that are rich in cultural detail. Often his books are centered on Paris but move around to more exotic locales.

Even better, his novel Dark Voyage is set on a ship that travels from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. It might be perfect.
posted by hiteleven at 6:44 PM on December 20, 2009

I've read In the Heart of the Sea (mentioned above), and it is really great.
posted by something something at 6:45 PM on December 20, 2009

Wow, a lot of great replies already. As additional reference points that I should have mentioned before, he's read Horatio Hornblower and owns the series on DVD, and has also read much of the Master and Commander series. He also liked the Sharpe series on television.
posted by synecdoche at 6:54 PM on December 20, 2009

Oh, and also, he's historically had an aversion to American military movies and books (which he usually says are too jingoistic). British and Irish stuff is probably best.
posted by synecdoche at 6:56 PM on December 20, 2009

In case you're interested in Furst, his books are by no means jingoistic. Many of his characters are set from smaller European nations (eg. The Netherlands, Hungary) and the perspective is distinctly continental European.
posted by hiteleven at 7:03 PM on December 20, 2009

John McPhee's "Looking for a Ship" is perfect for him.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 7:06 PM on December 20, 2009

I'm going to third the recommendation for In the Heart of the Sea, which has been received uniformly positively when I have gifted or recommended it.
posted by jeather at 7:28 PM on December 20, 2009

What about Longitude? It's not about naval battles, but rather the scientific challenge of figuring out how to calculate longitude so that ships could have some idea of where they were as they crossed gigantic oceans.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:32 PM on December 20, 2009

Adrift might be a good fit.
posted by backwards guitar at 7:53 PM on December 20, 2009

Might be a bit of a stretch, but I loved Dan Simmons' The Terror. There's some naval interest, British military, and survival (or not) in hellish conditions. I read it right after reading In the Heart of the Sea (which, I would agree with others, is a fantastic book) and The Road, which is one of my all-time favorite reads. Note that The Terror does have some supernatural elements, but it's not the focus of most of the book.
posted by TochterAusElysium at 8:00 PM on December 20, 2009

Point of reference, I am not normally interested in military memoirs at all, unless they are well written and not jingoistic, and I did not find Thunder Below by Eugene Fluckey to be jingoistic. It is really not good to generalize in that way about American war books. There is generally a lot of crap out there related to WWII on all sides, but the memoirs of the people who really went through the worst of it are not that way. Band of Brothers is not either, for that matter.
posted by gudrun at 8:15 PM on December 20, 2009

Not a book, but here's something he might like reading.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:33 PM on December 20, 2009

A landlubber suggestion:
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Also, seems a shame to rule out Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy so quickly. These are amazing books that go way beyond labels like "American" or "Western."
posted by Paris Elk at 2:41 AM on December 21, 2009

Getting back to the merchant marine thing, The Box went over extremely well with the merchant mariners I know. Not everyone's idea of the thrill a minute page turner, but for those in the biz, riveting.

For a really good WWII book and movie from an unexpected perspective, you could do a whole lot worse than Night of the Generals. (NB - all the bad DVD reviews are for the quality of the transfer, NOT for the movie itself.)
posted by IndigoJones at 7:09 AM on December 21, 2009

Maybe try Leon Uris historical fiction, like Trinity or Exodus.
posted by cross_impact at 7:29 AM on December 21, 2009

I have given these books four times and gotten praise each time from WWII buffs:

We Die Alone

Sledge Patrol
posted by RedEmma at 9:15 AM on December 21, 2009

(We Die Alone has recently been re-issued and will be not-too-difficult to find, I think.)
posted by RedEmma at 9:15 AM on December 21, 2009

Dreadnought is just the ticket. There is also a sequel, if a thousand pages isn't enough.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:38 AM on December 21, 2009

I went out today and bought In the Heart of the Sea but I'll definitely be referring to this thread again in future--he's impossible to shop for so any ideas are always welcome. Thanks everyone.
posted by synecdoche at 6:56 PM on December 21, 2009