The Leading eBooks Store Online
for your Apple or Android device, Nook, Kobo, PC, Mac, Sony Reader...
Most popular at the top
The Pirate Hunterby Richard Zacks
Hyperion 2003; US$ 11.95Everybody knows the legend of Captain Kidd, Americas most ruthless buccanneer. Few people realize that the facts of his life make for a much better tale. Kidd was actually a tough New York sea captain hired to chase pirates, a married war hero whose secret mission took a spectacularly bad turn.This harrowing tale traces Kidds voyages in the 1690s from his home near Wall Street to Whitehall Palace in London, from the ports of the Caribbean to a secret pirate paradise off Madagascar. Author Richard Zacks, during his research, also unearthed the story of a long forgotten rogue named Robert Culliford, who dogged Kidd and led Kidds crew to mutiny not once but twice. The lives of Kidd and Culliford play out like an unscripted duel: one man would... more...
Titanic's Last Secretsby Brad Matsen
Grand Central Publishing 2008; US$ 9.99After rewriting history with their discovery of a Nazi U-boat off the coast of New Jersey, legendary divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler decided to investigate the great enduring mystery of history's most notorious shipwreck: Why did Titanic sink as quickly as it did? To answer the question, Chatterton and Kohler assemble a team of experts to explore Titanic, study its engineering, and dive to the wreck of its sister ship, Brittanic, where Titanic's last secrets may be revealed. Titanic 's Last Secrets is a rollercoaster ride through the shipbuilding history, the transatlantic luxury liner business, and shipwreck forensics. Chatterton and Kohler weave their way through a labyrinth of clues to discover that Titanic was not the strong,... more...
The Invisible Hookby Peter T. Leeson
Princeton University Press 2009; US$ 16.95Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss--it's time to go a-pirating! The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates' notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior. Why did pirates fly flags of Skull & Bones? Why did they create a "pirate code"? Were pirates really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? The Invisible Hook uses economics to examine these and other infamous aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing economic conditions in the pursuit... more...
Desperate Hoursby Richard Goldstein
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2002; US$ 19.95"A stupendous feat of reportage." -Ron Powers, cowriter of Flags of Our Fathers Praise for Desperate Hours "Goldstein's book is packed with detail. . . . This description of the Doria's sinking is especially moving." -The New York Times "A stupendous feat of reportage. Goldstein has virtually put us into lifeboats and sent us hurtling into the North Atlantic on the night of July 25, 1956." -Ron Powers, cowriter, Flags of Our Fathers, and author of Dangerous Water and Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore On an extraordinary summer's night in 1956, in a fog off Nantucket, the world-renowned ocean liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish liner Stockholm and, eleven hours later, tragically sank. But in that brief time the Doria became,... more...
Fatal Treasureby Jedwin Smith
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2003; US$ 16.95"In real life-especially off the Florida coast-things can have fatal consequences. Fatal Treasure is a truly compelling read." -Aphrodite Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Cruel Sacrifice and All She Wanted In 1622, hundreds of people lost their lives to the curse of the Spanish galleon Atocha-and they would not be the last. Fatal Treasure combines the rousing adventure of Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea with the compelling characters and local color of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It tells the powerful true story of the relentless quest to find the Atocha and reclaim her priceless treasures from the sea. You'll follow Mel Fisher, his family, and their intrepid team of treasure hunters as they dive beneath the treacherous... more...
Until the Sea Shall Free Themby Robert Frump
Doubleday Publishing 2002; US$ 15.99A devastating disaster at sea . . . an officer who refuses to hide the truth. . . a courtroom confrontation with far-reaching implications . . . The Perfect Storm meets A Civil Action in a gripping account of one of the most significant shipwrecks of the twentieth century. In 1983 the Marine Electric , a “reconditioned” World War II vessel, was on a routine voyage thirty miles off the East Coast of the United States when disaster struck. As the old coal carrier sank, chief mate Bob Cusick watched his crew–his friends and colleagues–succumb to the frigid forty-foot waves and subzero winds of the Atlantic. Of the thirty-four men aboard, Cusick was one of only three to survive. And he soon found himself facing the... more...
Batavia's Graveyardby Mike Dash
Crown Publishing Group 2002; US$ 13.99From the bestselling author of Tulipomania comes Batavia’s Graveyard , the spellbinding true story of mutiny, shipwreck, murder, and survival. It was the autumn of 1628, and the Batavia, the Dutch East India Company’s flagship, was loaded with a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java. The Batavia was the pride of the Company’s fleet, a tangible symbol of the world’s richest and most powerful commercial monopoly. She set sail with great fanfare, but the Batavia and her gold would never reach Java, for the Company had also sent along a new employee, Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a bankrupt and disgraced man who possessed disarming charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help... more...
Ghost Shipby Brian Hicks
Random House Publishing Group 2004; US$ 11.99On December 4th, 1872, a 100-foot brigantine was discovered drifting through the North Atlantic without a soul on board. Not a sign of struggle, not a shred of damage, no ransacked cargo—and not a trace of the captain, his wife and daughter, or the crew. What happened on board the ghost ship Mary Celeste has baffled and tantalized the world for 130 years. In his stunning new book, award-winning journalist Brian Hicks plumbs the depths of this fabled nautical mystery and finally uncovers the truth. The Mary Celeste was cursed as soon as she was launched on the Bay of Fundy in the spring of 1861. Her first captain died before completing the maiden voyage. In London she accidentally rammed and sank an English brig. Later she was abandoned... more...
Lost at Seaby Patrick Dillon
Dell Publishing 1999; US$ 13.99On the morning of February 3, 1983, the Americus and Altair, two state-of-the-art crabbing vessels, idled at the dock in their home port of Anacortes, Washington. On deck, the fourteen crewmen--fathers, sons, brothers and friends who'd known one another all their lives--prepared for the ten-day trip to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. From this rough-and-tumble seaport the men would begin a grueling three-month season in one of the nation's most profitable and deadliest occupations--fishing for crab in the notorious Bering Sea. Standing on the Anacortes dock that morning, the families and friends of the crew knew that in the wake of the previous year's multimillion-dollar losses, the pressure for this voyage was unusually intense. Eleven days... more...
Violence at Seaby Peter Lehr
Taylor & Francis 2006; US$ 138.00Violence at Sea is an overview of maritime piracy, examining threats that piracy poses to global security and commerce, as well as measures and policies to mitigate the threat. The essays analyze piracy activities in key shipping lanes (including the African coast, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Straits of Malacca-South China Sea); piratical groups and their capabilities; case studies on overlaps between piracy, terrorism, and organized crime; legal and policy hurdles to combating piracy; tactical recommendations for combating piracy; and new trends and developments in the area. The counter response to maritime terrorism has been slow in coming, hampered by issues rooted in sovereignty, the laws of the sea, and the inherent challenges... more...