The Novel and the Sea by Margaret Cohen

This monograph contends that fictions of the sea constitute a traveling, adventure genre that begins in the modern era with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. This genre challenges our dominant accounts of the formation of the novel: Cohen insists that we account for the sea adventure narratives of writers such as Defoe and Smollett, even though the adventure genre has been critically neglected. After Smollett, the number of sea fictions wane until the subject is adopted by James Fenimore Cooper. In part this decline may be the result of the incredible, but true, tales that were happening on the world's oceans. Like the previously mentioned authors, though, Cooper is not famous for his sea fictions (The Pilot and Red Rover) but his Leatherstocking Tales. These American sea stories became popular just at the moment that the craft of seafaring became obsolete, replaced by mechanical inventions (such as accurate clocks to measure longitude). Thus Herman Melville, Victor Hugo, and Joseph Conrad had the opportunity to use their sea stories to focus on other kinds of craft at the margins. Jules Verne, on the other hand, took the exploration of frontiers beyond what people were actually experiencing to what they could only imagine. Thus, Cohen contends, sea fictions are the root of today's science fiction. I found this book to be ambitious, but thoroughly researched, and I was ultimately persuaded by Cohen's readings and her contextualizations, that we ought to pay more attention to sea fictions as a genre. I thought her description of the mariner's craft in the first chapter was particularly useful.

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming

In this book James Bond seems more familiar, as he teams up with Felix Leiter of the CIA again to take on SMERSH agent Mr. Big, who has apparently discovered a pirate's hoard of gold and is smuggling it into the United States and using the profits to fund communist activities. This book is clearly of its time: the way that it uses dialect and talks about race sound off-putting. But, it's more the words than the content that's offensive, and the spy story is good. The pacing is improved since Casino Royale.

Sup with the Devil by Barbara Hamilton

In this mystery Abigail Adams gets drawn into mysterious circumstances at Harvard which center around a document whose contents are hidden by the Arabic script used to write it, a collection of books owned by a pirate that may have fallen into the wrong hands, and that pirate's hidden treasure. It seemed to take a while for this mystery to really get going, but it all came together nicely in the end. Hamilton continues to write excellent historical fiction.

Railsea by China Miéville

This book tells an engrossing story set in a faintly recognizable but outlandish world. Islands of what might look to us like normalcy are connected by the railsea, train lines that twist & tangle over earth too dangerous to walk on (where moles, worms, & earwigs have grown in size & become genuine dangers to humans). Technology is salvaged by some trains, others carry goods, wage war, or engage in piracy. But we're treated to a ride on a moler, which hunts the massive animals of the railsea. In part, I loved this book for its imaginative world, & in part for the conceits which seems to speak to some primitive part of humanity (you can't step on the ground, or else!). I enjoyed seeing Sham ap Sooprap grow up. But mostly I loved it because in telling its story so well, it talks back to many other great books: Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, & Treasure Island, to name three obvious starting places. This is the kind of fantasy that got me started reading fantasy, & it's the kind of fantasy I want to read again & again & again.

Emmanuel Appadocca, or, Blighted Life: A Tale of the Boucaneers by Maxwell Philip

This novel focuses on Emmanuel Appadocca's attempt to avenge himself and his mother on his father, who abandoned them both. It has elements of both the gothic and sentimental romances. Appadocca sees his piracy in a Robin-Hood light; he avoids stealing from those who have made their money honestly. An intriguing tale of adventure on the high seas.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe

This novel follows the adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym, after he stows away on a whaling ship and finds himself in the midst of one disaster after another. Mutiny, piracy, cannibalism, and betrayal are all part of this story. Although the plot is wild, this book is more interesting for its unconventional form. At times narrative, at times journal, it ends abruptly--apparently the death of Pym himself (an event too well-known, according to the editorial "Poe" voice, to need further explanation) has cut off the explanation of how Pym and Dirk Peters escape their latest predicament (and why the color white is so terrifying on Antarctica). While the story is a little out-of-control (one problem piles onto another), it poses some very interesting questions about race, community, and narration.

Storm Warning by Linda Sue Park

The penultimate book in the 39 Clues series answers a lot of outstanding questions about the Cahill family, the Madrigals, and Nellie's behavior. I thought the pirate part of the hunt was cool--and I'm really excited to see how it all wraps up now.