Deep Blue: Stories of Shirwreck, Sunken Treasure, and Survival - Book Review

Kliatt, Sept, 2002 by Vivian E. Berg

Nate Hardcastle, ed. Adrenaline Series. 2002. Read by Terence Aselford, Richard Rohan, Nick Sampson, Barrett Whitener. 4 tapes. 6 hrs. Listen & Live Audio. 1-885408-63-3. $24.95. Cardboard; content notes. SA

Reader Sampson is the old pirate himself as he sails into "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest/Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" in the opening selection from Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The listener is hooked, and the standard for the audiobook is set. Among the other selections is Stephen Crane's short story, "The Open Boat," in which a shipwrecked crew in their dinghy come to realize their peril as they see people waving at them from shore, making no move to rescue them. The selection from In the Heart of the Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick, features the attack of the whale on the ship Essex that became the model for Melville in Moby Dick; the excellent selection from Moby Dick, however, is the meeting between Ishmael and Queequeg, not the whale's attack. The Boat Who Wouldn't Float is a rollicking selection: author Farley Mowat and his friend Jack are drunk when they decide to sail the world and drunk when they buy the boat in Newfoundland. The cardboard packaging on this audiobook is flimsy; authors, but not titles, are listed on the cover, which makes browsing difficult. Vivian E. Berg, Mandan, ND