Authors Bre - Buf
Brehm, Victoria (ed.)
Sweetwater, Storms, and Spirits: Stories of the Great Lakes. Univ of Michigan, 1990. 340 pages
Breslin, Howard (1912-1964)
The Silver Oar. Crowell, 1954. 310 pages
Story of life in the Massachussets Bay Colony in the 1680s, loosely based on truth. Smuggler is shipwrecked, taken in by town, then resumes his trade.
Briggs, Marie
Cocos Island Venture. Borden, 1950. 214 pages
Lighthearded stories of a girl's sailing trip to and from the Cocos.
Brinkley, William (1917-1993)
Quicksand. Dutton, 1948. 255 pages
Story of a young American naval officer who falls in love with a lovely Italian girl. Unfortunately there is a wife back home.
Don't Go Near the Water. Random House, 1956. 373 pages
Hilarous story of public relations men who get drafted into Navy without corrupting effect of training, then wind up smack in the middle of the war in the Pacific.
The Ninety and Nine. Doubleday, 1966. 393 pages
Adventures of the nine officers and ninety men of LST 1826 ferrying between Naples and Anzio in World War II.
The Last Ship. Viking, 1988. 616 pages
The guided missile destroyer NATHAN JAMES, the last US ship afloat after a nuclear holocaust, heads for a Pacific island haven.
Brinton, Henry (1901-1977)
Death to Windward. Hutchinson & Co., 1954. 192 pages
A sailor recuses a young girl washed overboard from a yacht.
Brittain, Harry
Rambles in East Anglia: or, Holiday excursions among the rivers and broads. Jarrold, 1899. 150 pages
Brockway, Fenner (1888-1988) (Baron Brockway)
Purple Plague: A tale of love and revolution. S. Low, Marston, 1935. 310 pages
The terrible Purple Plague strikes an ocean liner, dooming it to ten years at sea while the disease runs its course and social revolution ensues aboard ship. Revised as Red Liner: a Novel in TV Form in 1961
Brookes, Ewart (1901-1975)
Proud Waters. Jarrolds, 1954. 360 pages
When a RNVR officer is is ordered to take command of a minesweeper at a base close to the German-occupied French coast, he accepts the post reluctantly. The ship was known to have a sullen crew and a young lieutenant smarting under the injustice of a previous commander. But, as he discovers, the task of minesweeping is as essential as it is perilous
To Endless Night. Jarrolds, 1955. 239 pages
The CHARON was unfortunate to kill a man as she was launched. Bad luck dogs those sailing in her, especially her skipper. She is taken up as an ASDIC trawler for the Royal Navy at the outbreak of WW II and her erstwhile skipper, in greatly reduced circumstances, eventually finds himself back on board. The pre-war fishing and her war-time service is interestingly told but all in all a depressing story. Also published as The Curse of the Trawler Charon.
Nor On What Seas. Jarrolds, 1956. 247 pages
Tug salvaging a broken tanker; drunken captain, attractive wife, devil-may-care tug mate boards ship to attach tow.
The Glass Years. Jarrolds, 1957. 256 pages
Glory Passed Them By. Jarrolds, 1958. 175 pages
Ride the Wild Wind. Jarrolds, 1958. 255 pages
Tempest. Jarrolds, 1959. 224 pages
Wind Along the Waste. Jarrolds, 1962. 240 pages
Sea Dance. Jarrolds, 1963. 191 pages
The Fury of the Wind. Jarrolds, 1965. 200 pages
Brooks, Kenneth F.
Run to the Lee. Norton, 1965. 185 pages
Not great literature, but a very satisfying tale about a run down the Chesapeake Bay in a snowy gale on a schooner that turns from a race for profits, to get a load of coal from Balto to Solomons and an equally profitable cargo of oysters back, to one for survival.
Brooks, Peter
World Elsewhere. Simon & Schuster, 1999. 224 pages
Based on an actual round the world voyage of a French ship in the 1770s. An 18th century voyage of exploration to Tahiti through the eyes of a French prince who has gone to sea to make his fortune. Tahiti is paradise and he falls in love, but one day the ship's captain announces they are going home. What should the prince do?
Brown, Jamieson, (1916-2009)
Destroyers Will Rendezvous. Jarrolds, 1959. 287 pages
Three Australians find adventure and a different way of life as naval officers on loan to the Royal Navy during WW II.
Bruff, Nancy
The Manatee. E. P. Dutton and Co., 1945. 251 pages
Nantucket, whaling, romance, and dark secrets.
Brunner, John (1934-1995)
The Great Steamboat Race. Ballantine Books, 1983. 568 pages
Mississippi steamboats race to from New Orleans to St. Louis. Purely historical change of pace from a noted SF author.
Buchanan, Bill
ClearWater. Berkley, 2000. 475 pages
USS Submarine is hijacked. A new technology which can track a trail of clear water in the ocean is the only hope to locating it.
Buchanan, William [pseud. William Ray Buck] (1930- )
Christopher Syn. Abelard Schuman, 1960. 254 pages
The Vicar of Dymchurch pursues his smuggling activities in the guise of a scarecrow during the reign of George III. Since there was no American copyright of Further Adventures of Dr. Syn, Buck took parts of Thorndike's original story and added a new ending. This novel was the basis of the Disney movie.
Buchheim, Lothar Gunther (1918-2007)
The Boat. Knopf, 1975. 463 pages
Translation of: Das Boot. Autobiographical novel looks at the Battle of the Atlantic from a German U-boat perspective. Revisionistic, boasting a humane submarine commandant who deeply regrets the necessity of sinking civilian vessels, professional, competent officers and a crew of decent, often unwarlike men nicknamed the "children's crusade" because of their extreme youth.
Budrys, Algis (1931-2008)
Scream at Sea. Fantastic, January-February, 1954
Short story. A grifter is adrift on a lifeboat with a cat. Only one can survive. Collected in Blood and Burning (Berkley, 1978).
Buff, Joe
Deep Sound Channel. Bantam, 2000. 354 pages
Lt. Commander Jeffrey Fuller takes his stealth submarine, the USS Challenger, on a covert mission to destroy a South African biological weapons compound with the aid of a Navy SEAL strike force.
Buffett, Jimmy
Tales of Margaritaville: Fictional Facts and Factual Fiction. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1989. 230 pages
Stories set on the Gulf coast, Florida Keys and Caribbean, the nautical ones seem to be more factual, but considering the title...
Where is Joe Merchant? . Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. 382 pages
A rock star committed suicide, or did he? According to the tabloid headlines, he's very much on the move. Follow a fictional gumbo of dreamers, wackos, pirates, and sharks on a wild chase for the truth through the Caribbean.
Buffett, Jimmy and Buffett, Savanah Jane (Jimmy's daughter)
The Jolly Mon. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988. 32 pages
Childrens picture book about a Bob Marley-esque sailing singer.
Trouble Dolls. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991. 32 pages
A girl searches for her missing scientist father.