The world of literature and fiction is so wide that there are works for everyone to enjoy, no matter what kind of topic or subject they are interested in. Today, we are going to look at something weird and wonderful in the form of books and short story collections that revolve around water and fish, and not just in name only – stories that genuinely explore what it’s like to live in the way of the water.
The Wager by David Grann
A recent nonfiction work subtitled “a story of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder,” The Wager tells the tale of the eponymous ship on an ill-fated war voyage from England that wrecks off the coast of Patagonia. The conditions lead to mutiny and the mutineers leave the captain and his loyalists at the wreck site, struggling back home on a schooner called the Speedwell. They miraculously make it back to England and are heralded as heroes.
However, to the shock of everyone, a tattered barge emerges a few months later, with the captain and his men having also made the treacherous trip back home, with conflicts and court martials soon to follow between the groups.
A fascinating story of human pressures and an ill-fated voyage, David Grann’s 2023 book topped the nonfiction bestseller lists and remained a notable work ever since. As in the case of his previous work, Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio also purchased the rights to The Wager and are looking to tell the story with a very similar cast and crew.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
A bona fide literary classic, Moby Dick is the quintessential Great American Novel, exploring mania and obsession and the senseless glory-hunting of the human spirit, all in the context of whale fishing in the nineteenth century.
Beyond the deep exploration of the human condition and a genuinely interesting adventure story, Moby Dick also offers a fascinating look into the everyday life of sailors at sea in this period – from scurvy to boredom, you have to wonder how they passed the time on such long journeys.
In the book, we explicitly learn about scrimshaw, a pastime where sailors would carve various things into ivory, bone and shell. These were simpler times, to be sure, and fascinating to compare with the more exciting options of today. Nowadays, we have the Fishin Frenzy slot and other cutting edge options like Black Sails Wild Seas at online sites if we want a helping of marine-themed entertainment, alongside films like Last Breath (2025) and Meg 2: The Trench (2023). It’s little wonder Ahab went so stir-crazy with such comparatively limited resources.
The book is old enough to have entered the public domain, which means it’s available to download for free at Project Gutenberg to read digitally. Clearly, even for a book as old as it is, it remains fresh and relevant.
As Deep as England by Paul Harrison
Paul Harrison’s award-winning stories about fishing and the way of life as a fisherman range from historical and cultural explorations to genuine horror and sci-fi territory, all exploring what it’s like for “anglers” – the British way of referring to fishermen.
However, the stories have a universal quality and charm to them, which is why they are award-winning affairs, with subjects ranging from “a mysterious creature that seems to lurk at the bottom of a Welsh garden pond” to a trail camera set for poachers which captures something far more scandalous on the Swallow at night.
These books, old and new, and covering some very diverse ground, demonstrate brilliantly the great wealth of material there is yet to be derived from the deep blue, which has provided such an endless fountain of fascination for artists throughout history.