10 books for lovers of the sea

I could never live far from the sea, or at least that is what I have been thinking for a few years in which I left a certain inland city where I was missing "something".

And possibly in your case, the desire to go in short sleeves, drink mojitos and stretch on the beach increases every day also in the face of good weather and, especially, that long-awaited summer. However, until that time comes, lovers of the sea and beaches will find in these 10 books the perfect aperitif to travel to the seas of Japan or the beaches of Cuba without leaving home.

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare

Associated with Bermuda, this Shakespearean play, first performed in 1611, is set on a Caribbean island where the protagonist, Prospero arrives, expelled by his brother and left at the mercy of nature and deities such as Ariel, goddess of the wind and ally of a protagonist for whom she acts as a storm. Pure magic.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

"Call me Ismael" was the quote that would kick off this novel in which the whaler Pequod ventured into Pacific waters until he came across a sperm whale of epic proportions that, curiously, also existed in real life. Published in 1777, Moby Dick is everything we can ask of an adventure novel on the high seas during those times when the ocean still seemed to contain more than one secret.

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

The most famous adventure book in history (with permission from the works of Verne) became a reflection of the shipping adventures of the XNUMXth century thanks to that Caribbean of hidden treasures and treacherous pirates, among which the famous Long John Silver, icon of a (refreshing) traveling literature that remains timeless more than 130 years after its publication.

20 thousand languages ​​of underwater travel, by Jules Verne

Verne mocked the metaphysics and the imagination spilled around the sea thanks to one of his great works, this 20 thousand leagues of submarine journey in which a crew traveled around the world aboard the submarine Nautilus, home of a Captain Nemo in which more From an expert, he saw Verne himself and his fatalistic vision of XNUMXth century humanity reflected, of all history.

The Rumor of the Surf, by Yukio Mishima

Published in 1954, The Rumor of the Waves is a simple book in which the setting is one more protagonist of the story. Set in a lost island of the Japanese archipelago of Okinawa, Mishima's work narrates the youthful romance between a young man named Shinji and the daughter of a wealthy businessman, Hatsue, two lost souls in the middle of a place where electricity does not always reach, a lighthouse lies in the mists and the villagers live intimately linked to the sea. One of my favorites.

The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

The famous Hemingway would win the Nobel Prize in 1954 thanks to this short novel, which, like a fable, tells the odyssey of a Cuban fisherman who wanders his boat into the Gulf of Mexico until he captures a huge swordfish with which he seeks to regain pride and prestige in his life. community. Essential.

Story of a castaway, by Gabiel García Márquez

Completely removed from the magical realism that would make Gabo famous, the writer played his most journalistic (and equally successful) side with this short novel based on the real event of Luis Alejandro Velasco, who was shipwrecked in the Caribbean for 10 days after the sinking of a ship that left Alabama for Colombia in the mid-XNUMXs.

Sea in the background, by José Luis Sampedro

The first book I read by Sampedro was this compilation of nine stories of which each represents a sea or ocean of the world: from the Aegean to those of the South, passing through the Indian Ocean. A book that will delight lovers of adventure, travel and the emotional, because despite the dynamism that the plot promises, there is a lot of intimacy in the stories of the Catalan writer who left us in 2013.

The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

Published in 1947, this novel by the author of The Grapes of Wrath explored the coastal enclaves of Baja California, a peninsula where a pearl became the only way of survival for a fisherman and his wife in the crusade to save the life of your son. Family and despair in one of the most beautiful places on the coast of the United States.

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Adapted to the big screen in 2012, Vida de Pi collects the testimony of a story told to the Canadian Martel by a local from South India that revealed the odyssey of a boy named Pi, who after the sinking of the ship in which he was traveling with his family (and his portable zoo), he was trapped in a boat with Richard Parker, the most famous Bengal tiger in literature after Shere Khan and main hook of this story of survival, faith and fantasy.

These 10 books for sea lovers they will become the perfect aperitif before those imminent months in which the good weather will lead us back to the beaches, the breeze and that freedom that we long for all year round.

What other "marine" books do you recommend?