List love: All at Sea

Jungle, desert, mountain, sea?

Someone asked this question not long ago in a random poll on a chat forum I frequent, and my answer was emphatically “the sea”. I grew up in sight of it, I start to feel antsy if I can’t hear, see or smell it for more than a couple of weeks, and I really think I would lose something important from my life if I were to settle somewhere far away from it. A lake is just not the same - fresh water smells different, and so do saltwater lakes. So here is some List Love, featuring the sea in a pivotal role:

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Novel. While the eponymous white whale is the star of the show, the book actually is about much more than just Captain Ahab’s obsession. The descriptions of life at sea on a whaling ship were what I most enjoyed about it.
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. The true story that inspired Moby Dick. An enraged bull sperm whale sinks a whaleship in the Pacific and the crew must try to get to land in the whaleboats. Not a pretty story but an amazing survival tale.
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. Trapped in a hostile environment, surrounded by sea and ice, this is another amazing survival story in which the sea plays an important part.
The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson. Life in, on the surface and on the shores of the sea plays an integral part in this interesting and well-written account of the life cycle of the Maine lobster and the lives of the fishermen who trap them and the scientists who study them.
The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby. While I could have done without the technical aspects of life on a tall ship, the names of sails and rigging, ropes and other equipment in which Newby indulged in describing, there is no denying that the life at sea that he describes has a great deal of nostalgia and charm in it.
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord. The story of the night the Titanic sank. A marvellous book I read recently, it is still, more than 50 years after it was first published, considered to be one of the best Titanic books.
Typhoon by Joseph Conrad. A terrifying tale of a ship caught in a storm.
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers. Besides being a cracking espionage thriller, it is also full of the joys of sailing and being on the water.
The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. A tense and sometimes claustrophobic tale of a cat-and-mouse game played between a Soviet submarine captain and the navies of the Soviet Union and NATO.
The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw. The account of the captain of a fishing boat of life at sea and of one particular fishing tour.

If you crave more titles

Honourable mention:

Sea Crow Island by Astrid Lindgren.

Sea books on my reading list:
Life of Pi by Yann Martell.
Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin.
Percival Keene by Frederick Marryat.
Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum.
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz.
The Sinbad Voyage by Tim Severin.
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger.

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove

List love: A growing list of recommended books with elderly protagonists or significant elderly characters

I think it's about time I posted this, as I have been working on it for a couple of months. I feel there isn’t enough fiction written about the elderly, or at least about the elderly as protagonists. The elderly in fiction tend to be supporting characters, often wise elders (such as Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books) or cranky old neighbour types (e.g. the faculty of Unseen University in the Discworld series) or helpless oldsters (any number of books, especially children’s books) for the protagonist to either help or abuse (depending on whether they’re a hero or not). Terry Pratchett has written several of my favourite elderly protagonists and they always kick ass in one way or another, so you will see several of his books on this list, either as listed items or ‘also’ mentions. Without further ado: Here is a list of books with elderly protagonists or significant, important elderly characters. I leave it up to you to decide if you’re interested or not, but I certai

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