The 8 Best Books to Read on Your Summer Yacht Trip
August has been named National Dog Month, National Sandwich Month, and most dubiously, National Brownies at Brunch Month, but aquaphiles know the final month of summer is for kicking back on a boat with a cocktail and a good read.
We scoured this season’s newest releases to feature a mix of novels and non-fiction with ties to the sea, as well as e-books and audiobooks convenient for maritime voyages.
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Our picks include murder mysteries on the high seas, true tales of swashbuckling pirates, and histories spanning thousands of years that paint a picture of our seafaring civilization. There’s also a tell-all exposé from a megayacht chef, and a beautiful five-and-a-half-pound coffee table book on the history of the Monaco Yacht Club for the salon of your superyacht.
Here are eight recommendations that let you sit back, relax and enjoy the journey. All aboard!
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‘Rip Tide’ By Colleen McKeegan
This murder mystery, released today, is set in the mid-aughts. Upon returning to their childhood beachfront home on the Jersey Shore, the Devine sisters, now in their 30s, are forced to confront their shared traumatic past when a body washes ashore. The narrative delves into the universal themes of friendship, first love and sisterhood, in all its beauty and brutality, to explore the lengths we’ll go to protect family. Plus, they have a cool family boat.
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‘Mega Yacht Confidential’ by Bill Odek
This comical memoir from a Scottish-born haute chef takes him from European villas to New York penthouses to finally, some of the world’s largest yachts. As a former chef on the high seas, Odek lifts the veil on the culinary underbelly of these floating palaces. In this no-holds-barred exposé, he tells of the “clandestine dealings, ethical compromises, and mountains of cocaine” he encountered beneath the glamorous veneer of the superyacht world.
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‘Yacht Club de Monaco ‘by Jill Bobrow
The 75-year-old Monaco Yacht Club has an outsized impact on the most glamorous city in the world. Jill Bobrow, one of the most prolific writers in the superyacht world, tells its story, from its origins during Prince Rainier III’s reign to its growth under his son, HSH Prince Albert II, who has been its president since 1984 (and who wrote the foreword). The ten-year-old Lord Norman Foster-designed building symbolizes the principality’s glamor at the edge of the Port Hercule harbor. But the yacht club has also taken the lead with multiple ocean sustainability efforts, thanks to Prince Albert’s passion for the sea. The book, weighing 5.5 lbs., is filled with beautiful photos. It would make the ideal coffee-table tome for yacht or coastal home.
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‘A History of the World in 12 Shipwrecks’ By David Gibbins
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Underwater archaeologist Gibbins tells the story of human history via 12 shipwrecks, from ancient Rome through modern-day Arctic exploration. Along the way, Gibbins visits the Viking warship of King Cnut the Great, Henry VIII’s Mary Rose, and Captain John Franklin’s HMS Terror to show how these ships facilitated the spread of people, religion, and ideas around the world.
‘Enemies of All: The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Piracy’ By Richard Blakemore
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This sweeping history of piracy’s swashbuckling era take readers on an all-encompassing journey from the Caribbean and American colonies of Britain to Western Europe and even farther afield. Blakemore visits the exploits of Blackbeard, Captain Kidd and other notorious swashbucklers to examine piracy’s lasting impact on contemporary law and popular media.
‘The Ocean Liner Series’ by Edward Marston
Load your Kindle with the five-book Ocean Liner series about murder on the high seas. Think Agatha Christie on the ocean. Each mystery sets sail on an early twentieth century iconic vessel as George Porter Dillman, an undercover detective teams up with an unlikely partner, first-class passenger Genevieve Masefield. The unsolved murders begin on the Lusitania‘s 1907 maiden voyage. That initial success takes the two sleuths to the furthest reaches of the globe aboard the Mauretania, Minnesota, and Caronia while solving murders. The latest installment, Murder on the Marmora, sees the pair set sail for Egypt.
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‘The Explorers Club’ Edited By Jeff Wilser
The discovery of the North and South Poles. The summiting of Everest. The moon landing. The Explorers Club was there for it all. From the darkest depths of the ocean to the highest points on Earth and to outer space and beyond, the world’s most prominent explorers, Teddy Roosevelt and Neil Armstrong included, have called the Club home since 1904. This collection of stories describes the death-defying frontiers of exploration with this illustrated guided tour of its members’ most riveting journeys.
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‘Invisible Iceberg: When Climate and Weather Shaped History’ By Dr. Joel N. Myers
From the founder and chairman of AccuWeather comes a history of how weather and climate affected events from the beginning of time through modern day. Myers covers the climate shift in 1213 BC that created the conditions for the Ten Plagues of Egypt, the volcano in 44 BC that helped launch the Roman Empire, the storm in 1814 that ended the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, the two major blizzards that helped create the New York Subway System in 1888, and much, much more.
