Oh to be beside the seaside

July 26, 2010 5:36 AM

I am looking for essays, articles, novels, poems about the appeal of living near the sea in the 21st century, for people whose work or lifestyle is not dependent on the sea.

Older works would also be useful, presuming they are not focused on ports, industry etc.

Personal anecdotes, opinions also welcome of course.

posted by hiho to Travel & Transportation (12 answers total)

Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea is a good start.

I'm not able to surf a lot right now to find this stuff, but you may also want to look at real estate trends/statistics/history. I have read several pieces over the years that track the migration of people toward the water. For instance, a full third of Baby Boomers want to find a home near the water in a future real estate purchase. And "between the years 1980 and 2003, population in coastal counties increased by 33 million people or 28 percent."

Also, magazines like Downeast, Yankee, Coastal Living, Islands, and Maine seem to constantly have articles profiling people (or their houses) who live on the water, and they generally expound the many benefits of the lifestyle. That short list is pretty Northeast-focused, but any regional magazine from a coastal area will probably do some similar stuff.
posted by Miko at 6:02 AM on July 26, 2010

Oh, so sorry - I just realized you said 21st century, so Gift from the Sea is too old. Apologies.
posted by Miko at 6:04 AM on July 26, 2010

A short story set on the cusp of the 21st century: The Afternoon of the Sassanoa, by Jason Brown.* I recommend it, because its themes include: a generational change in which the sea becomes less necessary (with the knowledge gained and lost as a result), the dangers of coastal life, and the unfettered joy of sailing when the winds are right.

*Brown's collection Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work is wonderful, by the way
posted by .kobayashi. at 6:24 AM on July 26, 2010

Farley Mowat's Bay of Spirits is set in the 1960s but is relevant. It also mentions the community where I now live... :-)
posted by Brodiggitty at 6:46 AM on July 26, 2010

This woman writes a lot of articles in various publications about living on a small island off the coast of Maine. She and her husband are just about the only people on the island who don't fish.
posted by JanetLand at 6:48 AM on July 26, 2010

Jersey Shore!
posted by pickypicky at 6:49 AM on July 26, 2010

See Katullus' beautiful post from yesterday.
posted by aqsakal at 7:06 AM on July 26, 2010

My view of this topic has not been the same since I read John Stilgoe's article in this Orion compilation, "Bikinis, Beaches, and Bombs: Human Nature On the Sand." He also has a book which I haven't read, called Alongshore.
posted by salvia at 7:44 AM on July 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

John Bensko's Sea Dogs is a collection of short stories about people drawn to living by the ocean. Every story involves some kind of confrontation with the water.
posted by Ideal Impulse at 10:23 AM on July 26, 2010

OK, since you asked for personal anecdotes as well: I'm a programmer who spends summers working from a shack on Cape Cod about 1½ miles from the ocean. The beach is my daily respite from the Internet, a completely unintermediated experience of nature: hot sun and sand, cold water, birds and seals... and underage girls in bikinis (wait, no, the Internet has that).

The one danger to my paradise is that AT&T Wireless seems to be moving closer and closer... if my new iPhone can get a signal from the beach I guess I'll just have to hold it the wrong way...

And now I'm going to the beach!
posted by nicwolff at 10:28 AM on July 26, 2010

Alongshore is a really great book, but it was written before 2000, and most of the content is historic. Still, for a readable but still scholarly long view of relationship with the sea in the US, you can't beat it.
posted by Miko at 10:28 AM on July 26, 2010

You migjht want ot take a look at James Hamilton-Paterson's book Seven Tenths.
posted by tallus at 3:35 PM on July 26, 2010