Books like The Only Way to Cross

This is a biography but it’s about a famous ship, the Mauretania, rather than a famous person. Through her illustrious career the Mauretania—affectionately called the ‘Maury’—carried passengers in speed and style across the Atlantic while holding the Blue Riband for more than 20 years. In service from 1907 to 1934, she spanned the era of the great luxurious liners.

Lots of textual material, which I like, although there’s enough photos to illustrate the various aspects of her life. If you like detail, this book has it. My only criticism is light coverage of her important role in the First World War. Read this in conjunction with the histories of her sister ship and running mate, the ill-fated Lusitania. They provided a rotating weekly service across the Atlantic for 8 years, and were equally luxurious, but their stories are far from identical.

This is not a biography of a ship, but rather a focus on the tragedy of the loss of the Lusitania, torpedoed by a German submarine in 1915. This book is heavily textual, as would be expected, so if you like lots of pictures to accompany a story, this is not the book for you.

It was published in 2002, well before the deluge of books produced in 2015, the centenary of the Lusitania tragedy. Those books speculated regarding her loss, attempting to pin the tragedy on a ‘bad guy’. Not so Ms. Preston. Timing-wise, Diana Preston’s book fortunately precedes the rush to speculate. Although she looks at the possible wartime undercurrents, she puts the event in the historical context of the time.

So, if you’re going to read the various 2015 era books about the tragedy, read Diana’s book first.

This book is a refreshing approach because it covers the period prior to Titanic’s disastrous Maiden Voyage, in material reprinted from an early edition of The Shipbuilder. Do not read another Titanic disaster book until you have read this insight and appreciated the foldout deck plans and longitudinal cutaways to see the actual cabin and deck arrangements. They really help to explain many aspects of the disaster story.

The contents lean heavily on engineering matters, but you don’t have to be an engineer to fully appreciate the design work that went into these more-or-less identical sister ships, and it’s worth noting that much of the Titanic controversy swirled around alleged design flaws.

Published in 1970, this is a reprint of the original 1912 book which is well beyond the average book buyer’s budget. A caveat—even this one isn’t cheap, and you will have to search online.

I have found Bill Miller’s book to be of massive value in tracking the changes in postwar ships. The primary reason is that many ships changed hands—and names—over that period. Sometimes the names changed more than once! The cause was the sharp drop in Transatlantic and other passenger shipping as air travel exploded in popularity. Smaller, more agile operators purchased ships surplus to the requirements of the larger operators such as Canadian Pacific and revamped and renamed the ships.

Bill Miller has useful illustrations of the ships involved. For example, a picture of the Dutch liner Willem Ruys, which was sold to the Lauro Line and, with a vastly different design profile, became the Achille Lauro. Organized by shipping line, this is a fascinating read and an insight into the changes in liner layout and design over the period.

This really is a gem of a book. The reader is left guessing whether it is a memoir, auto-fiction, or stand-alone fiction. From its deceptively simple beginning, it cleverly deals with so many of life's big issues with a thoughtful lightness of touch. The book is written from the perspective of grown-up Michael, but Ondaatje explores the confusion and frustration of the child who was made to sail halfway around the world to a new home and the subsequent impact the journey has on the adult Michael. 

Dead Wake is fact that reads like fiction. Not often do I choose a book already knowing how it ends. His artistic rendering of the world in 1915 is alone worth the read. He introduces us to the passengers of the SS Lusitania, who they are, why they are on the ship, and he makes us care.

Larson limns Captains Turner of the Lusitania, and Schweiger of the U-20, the Imperial German submarine. The author carefully choreographs the final voyage of the doomed ship. The sinking is not the end of the story. 

The last third of the book is devoted to what happened after the torpedo hit. Captain Turner survives the attack as well as many of the passengers. This is a beautifully researched, but heartrending read. 

Carolyn Hart is one of those cozy mystery writers who effortlessly reel me into their world. Set Sail for Murder satisfies my longing for travel with its itinerary and the lush vivid descriptions, as well as having an enjoyable mystery at its core. As a former journalist, I’m also a sucker for retired reporters turned sleuth. I read this first on a train, and it made the hours fly by. As soothing as the sound of waves gently lapping a boat. 

Fast-paced, exciting, with enough twists to keep me reading without a single break – this is one of my all-time favourites by prolific author Alistair MacLean. I found myself chuckling and, in the next instant, holding my breath as the First Officer has to outwit terrorists who have taken over the tramp carrier cum cruise ship “Campari.” But what I enjoy most is the mix of humour and lightheartedness that balance the high octane thrills which are grounded in meticulous research.

Washington Irving once famously described a long sea voyage as a “blank page in existence.” Stephen Berry’s analysis of James Oglethorpe’s Georgia Expedition, which sailed from England to colonial Georgia in 1735, shows that the opposite was true. Rather than merely serve as the stage on which the human drama of migration played out, the sea voyage was a dynamic actor in the experience itself. Far from land, migrants had time and space to reconsider their views on society, religion, and identity in ways that shaped their new lives in America.

Professor Laleh Khalili provides an absolutely riveting account of the transformation of the Gulf region, where the U.S. fifth fleet has operated since the 1990s, into a hub of world commerce in oil and arms. She argues that the lines between civilian and military logistics have grown increasingly blurred. To prove it, she takes us aboard the container ships, detours back to the time when British firms and government agencies ruled, explores the ports and free zones, follows the rails and roads, and uncovers the complex labor relations that make war and trade possible.