 DonateThe following are ocean-themed audiobooks available through Hoopla!
Looking for more summer reading suggestions? Check our blog archive for more!
Fiction
They Came from the Ocean / Boris Bacic, read by Chris Gatterdam
Exploring the bottom of the ocean is scary. It’s worse when something down there is stalking you. Off the coast of New Zealand, there’s an underwater mining facility 8,000 feet under the ocean. The crew stationed there knows that drowning is the least of their worries at such depths. That’s why they panic when a maintenance member goes missing while out on a repair mission. He had only eight hours of oxygen, and almost a day has gone by since they lost contact, so the crew can only hope to retrieve his body. Then they receive a distress call from him – at a depth of 11,000 feet. A small rescue team suits up and dives to find their missing crewmate. But descending into the unforgiving depths of the ocean is much easier than going back up, and the team learns that too late. Now, stranded at the bottom of the trench without the ability to call for help, they realize that coming down here was a terrible mistake. There’s something far worse down there than the crushing pressure, the ticking timers on their oxygen tanks, and the everlasting darkness that inhabits such depths. And it’s hunting them one by one.
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield, read by Annabel Baldwin, Robyn Holdaway
Leah is changed. Months earlier, she left for a routine expedition, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.
The Tourist Trail by John Yunker, read by John Yunker
An IndieReader Discovery Award Winner: The Tourist Trail is a literary thriller about endangered species in the world’s most remote areas, and those who put their lives on the line to protect them. Biologist Angela Haynes is accustomed to dark, lonely nights as one of the few humans at a penguin research station in Patagonia. She has grown used to the cries of penguins before dawn, to meager supplies and housing, to spending most of her days in one of the most remote regions on earth. What she isn’t used to is strange men washing ashore, which happens one day on her watch. The man won’t tell her his name or where he came from, but Angela, who has a soft spot for strays, tends to him, if for no other reason than to protect her birds and her work. When she later learns why he goes by an alias, why he is a refugee from the law, and why he is a man without a port, she begins to fall in love-and embarks on a journey that takes her deep into Antarctic waters, and even deeper into the emotional territory she thought she’d left behind. Against the backdrop of the Southern Ocean, The Tourist Trail weaves together the stories of Angela as well as FBI agent Robert Porter, dispatched on a mission that unearths a past he would rather keep buried; and Ethan Downes, a computer tech whose love for a passionate animal rights activist draws him into a dangerous mission.
An Ocean Apart by Robin Pilcher, read by John Lee
For six dreadful months, David Corstorphine has tried to come to terms with his young wife’s death, while caring for his three motherless children. Try as he may, David is unable to return to work, and his only form of solace comes from working in the garden of his parents’ estate in the Scottish countryside.
Dispatched unexpectedly to New York, David’s family hopes that the impromptu business trip will help him get back on his feet. But the journey proves both disastrous and heartening. David finds himself settling in comfortably among the strangers of a seaside Long Island town, and takes a job as a gardener. But it is the people he meets, the pain he confronts, and the joy he is able to once again experience that prove to be magically transformative-and as David learns to accept his enormous loss, he is able to open his heart to love once again.
Writing with deep sensitivity to human frailty, desires and joys that listeners of his mother, Rosamunde Pilcher, have come to cherish, Robin Pilcher’s An Ocean Apart will be embraced by generations in years to come.
The Boardwalk Bookshop by Susan Malleryread by Tanya Eby
When fate brings three strangers to a charming space for lease on the California coast, the Boardwalk Bookshop is born. Part bookstore, part gift shop, part bakery, it’s a dream come true for Bree, Mikki, and Ashley. But while their business is thriving, their personal lives are… not.
Bree, wounded by brilliant but cold parents and her late husband’s ultimate betrayal, has sworn to protect her heart at all costs. Even from Ashley’s brother, a writer and adventurer who has inspired millions. He’s the first man to see past Bree’s barricades to her true self, which terrifies her. Mikki has this divorce thing all figured out—somehow, she’s stayed friends with her ex and her in-laws… until a new man changes how everyone looks at her, and how she sees herself. Meanwhile, Ashley discovers that the love of her life never intends to marry. Can she live without being a wife if it means she can have everything else she’s ever wanted?
At sunset every Friday on the beach in front of the Boardwalk Bookshop, the three friends share a champagne toast. As their bond grows closer, they challenge one another to become the best versions of themselves in this heartachingly beautiful story of friendship, sisterhood, and the transformative power of love.
The Water Keeper by Charles Martin, read by Jonathan Riggs
A riveting new story of heroism, heartache, and the power of love to heal all wounds. Murphy Shepherd is a man with many secrets. He lives alone on an island, tending the grounds for a church with no parishioners, and he’s dedicated his life to rescuing those in peril. But as he mourns the loss of his mentor and friend, Murph himself may be more lost than he realizes. When he pulls a beautiful woman named Summer out of Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, Murph’s mission to lay his mentor to rest at the end of the world takes a dangerous turn. Drawn to Summer, and desperate to find her missing daughter, Murph is pulled deeper and deeper into the dark and dangerous world of modern-day slavery. With help from some unexpected new friends, including a faithful Labrador he plucks from the ocean and an ex-convict named Clay, Murph must race against the clock to locate the girl before he is consumed by the secrets of his past-and the ghosts who tried to bury them. With Martin’s trademark lyricism and poignant prose, The Water Keeper is at once a tender love story a heartrending search for freedom, and a reminder that the needs of the one outweigh those of the ninety-nine.
The Inn at the Ocean’s Edge by Colleen Coble, read by Devon O’Day
Claire’s visit to a luxury hotel in Maine awakens repressed memories, threatening all she holds dear. In 1989, Claire Dellamare disappeared from her own fourth birthday party at the Hotel Tourmaline on the island of Folly Shoals, Maine. She showed up a year later at the same hotel, with a note pinned to her dress but no explanation. Nobody knows where Claire spent that year – and until now, Claire didn’t even know she had ever been missing. But when Claire returns to the Hotel Tourmaline for a business meeting with her CEO father, disturbing memories begin to surface…despite her parents’ best efforts to keep them forgotten. Luke Rocco lost his mother under equally mysterious circumstances – at the same time Claire disappeared. After a chance encounter reveals the unlikely link between them, Claire and Luke set out together to uncover the truth about what happened that fateful year. With flashbacks swimming just beneath her consciousness and a murderer threatening her safety, Claire’s very life depends on unscrambling her past…even if her family refuses to acknowledge it. Someone – maybe everyone – is hiding something from Claire Dellamare, and it will cost her everything to drag the truth out into the light.
A Drop in the Ocean by Jenni Ogden, read by Cat Gould
On her forty-ninth birthday, Anna Fergusson, Boston neuroscientist and dedicated introvert, arrives at an unwanted crossroads when the funding for her research lab is cut. With her confidence shattered and her future uncertain, on impulse she rents a cabin for a year on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. However Turtle Island, alive with sea birds and nesting Green turtles, is not the retreat she expected. Here she finds love-for the eccentric islanders who become her family; for Tom, the laid-back turtle whisperer; and for the turtles, whose ancient mothering instincts move her to tears. But Anna finds that even on her idyllic drop in the ocean, there is pain, and as the months fly past her dream for a new life is threatened by a darkness that challenges everything she has come to believe about the power of love. Evocative and thought provoking, A Drop in the Ocean is a story about second chances and hard lessons learned in the gentlest of ways.
Galaxies and Oceans by N. R. Walker, read by Joel Leslie
Seizing his one chance to escape, Ethan Hosking leaves his violent ex-boyfriend, leaves his entire life, and walks into the path of a raging bushfire. Desperate to start over, a new man named Aubrey Hobbs walks out of the fire-ravaged forest, alive and alone. With no ID and no money, nothing but his grandfather’s telescope, he goes where the Southern Cross leads him.
Patrick Carney is the resident lighthouse keeper in Hadley Cove, a small town on the remote Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia. After the tragic death of his lover four years ago, he lives a solitary life; just him, a tabby cat, the Indian and Southern Oceans, and a whole lot of loneliness. He’s content with his life until a stranger shows up in town and turns Patrick’s head.
Patrick never expected to be interested in anyone else.
Aubrey never expected to be happy.
Between Aubrey’s love of the stars and Patrick’s love of the ocean, these two fragile hearts must navigate new waters. If they can weather the storm of their pasts, they could very well have a love that eclipses everything.
Contains mature themes.
The View from Coral Cove by Amy Clipston, read by Madison Lawrence
When a jilted romance novelist returns to the small beach town she once loved, she discovers not only inspiration but also a romance to call her own.
Maya Reynolds is recently single after her fiancé chose to move to Europe without her. She’s struggling with her heartache-along with her latest novel-when she learns she’s inherited her great-aunt Cecelia’s store in the small town of Ocean View, North Carolina. As Maya arrives and begins combing through her beloved aunt’s belongings, long-held secrets from her family’s past come to light. Soon Maya is questioning fundamental beliefs about who she is and the people she has always loved.
While working in the shop one day, Maya meets Brody Tanner-the town’s local veterinarian. It’s clear the handsome vet has some secrets of his own, but Maya cannot help but be intrigued by him and the spunky child she believes to be his daughter.
As Maya works to make ends meet, she and Brody grow ever closer. But will the pasts they’re hiding from each other get in the way of a future together?
Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan, read by Veida Dehmlow
Polly Waterford is recovering from a toxic relationship. Unable to afford their flat, she has to move miles away from everyone, to a sleepy little seaside resort in Cornwall, where she lives alone above an abandoned shop. And so Polly takes out her frustrations on her favorite hobby: making bread. But what was previously a weekend diversion suddenly becomes far more important as she pours her emotions into kneading and pounding the dough, and each loaf becomes better and better. With nuts and seeds, olives and chorizo, with local honey (courtesy of local bee keeper, Huckle), and with reserves of determination and creativity Polly never knew she had, she bakes and bakes and bakes . . . and people start to hear about it. Sometimes, bread really is life . . . and Polly is about to reclaim hers.
The Golden Ocean by Patrick O’Brian, read by John Franklyn-Robbins
This is the first novel Patrick O’Brian ever wrote about the sea, a precursor to the Aubrey-Maturin series
The Golden Ocean shares the high-seas adventure and rich humor of this triumphant series, invoking the eloquent style and authentic historic atmosphere that O’Brian fans love so much. In 1740, two young Irishmen-lifelong friends Peter and Sean-join Commodore Anson and his crew on their quest for fortune and fame on the golden ocean.
Trust by Pamela M. Kelley, read by Erin DeWard
Thirty-six-year-old high-school teacher Lauren seems to have it all. She moved back to Waverly, a small seaside town just north of Boston, several years ago. She has a great career and has finally found true love. Lauren’s wedding is just a few weeks away when one of her students goes missing, and when his body is found a few days later, she suddenly becomes a person of interest.
Her fiancé David is a former minor-league pitcher turned stockbroker who is excited to settle down with Lauren. But when the missing student is found dead and the media turns its attention even more closely on Lauren, David is surprised to discover that Lauren hadn’t told him everything about her past.
With the help of his ninety-one-year-old grandfather, who is a retired town sheriff, and his best friend Jake, the current assistant sheriff, David sets out to find the truth.
Nonfiction
Sailing a Serious Ocean / John Kretschmer, read by Sean Runnette
Sailboats, Storms, Stories and Lessons Learned from 30 Years at SeaAfter sailing 300,000 miles and weathering dozens of storms in all the world’s oceans, John Kretschmer has plenty of stories and advice to share. John’s offshore training passages sell out a year in advance, and his entertaining presentations are popular at boat shows and yacht clubs all over the English-speaking world. John’s talent for storytelling enchants his audience as it soaks up the lessons he learned during his often challenging voyages. Now you can take a seat next to John-at a lesser cost-and get the knowledge you need to fulfill your own dream of blue-water adventure.
In Sailing a Serious Ocean, John tells you what to expect when sailing the oceans and shows how to sail safely across them. His tales of storm encounters and other examples of extreme seamanship will help you prepare for your journey and give you confidence to handle any situation-even heavy weather. Through his personal stories, John will guide you through the whole process of choosing the right boat, outfitting with the right gear, planning your route, navigating the ocean, and understanding the nuances of life at sea.
Our oceans are beautiful yet unpredictable-water that is at one moment a natural mirror for the glowing sun can turn into a foamy, raging wall of fury. John knows our oceans, and he is one of the best teachers of taming and enjoying them. Before you set off across the big blue, turn to John for his inspirational stories and hard-learned advice and discover the serious sailor in you.
Ocean: A Global Odyssey [National Geographic] by Sylvia A. Earle, read by Sylvia A. Earle
Discover the world’s ocean–from tides and currents to the creatures living in it to the impact it has on our lives, whether we know it or not–in this richly illustrated overview of the life force that defines and sustains our planet, written by world-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle. Everything you want to know about the ocean can be found inside these beautiful and dynamic pages. National Geographic Ocean unveils the power and significance of our planet’s watery essence: the fundamental importance of the ocean in shaping Earth’s climate and chemistry as well as its vital role in supporting a multitude of life-forms, including our own human race. World-renowned oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer in Residence Sylvia Earle–affectionately called “Her Deepness”–guides readers with her lyrical style and inspiring wisdom, describing the evolution, beauty, and impact of our ocean; the challenges it faces, such as climate change, plastic, and overfishing; and the myriad ways we can help protect it. This engaging story of the ocean celebrates dozens of ocean champions and visionaries, explores the ocean’s origin and the nature of water, and features a gallery of wondrous creatures that illustrate the spectacular diversity of life in the sea, from sponges, kelp, and zooplankton to whales, sharks, and sea turtles. More than 100 maps and diagrams, including seafloor and political maps of all Earth’s seas and oceans, elucidate Dr. Earle’s lively narrative. For seaside dwellers and landlubbers alike, this is a book you will turn to again and again to understand why, as Sylvia Earle says, “Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.” Dive deeper into ocean discovery with more National Geographic favorites: Into the Deep The Nature of Nature 100 Dives of a Lifetime Secrets of the Whales Pristine Seas Shark
Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days by John D. Whidden, read by Tom Perkins
Orphaned at five, nothing held Whidden back from embarking on sea life seven years later. Serving as an apprentice, he quickly proved his worth, and earned himself a mate’s position by his early twenties. Graduating to third, second, and first office, he ended his career in command of, and having part-ownership of his own vessel. This memoir, Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days, records a series of real events, from his childhood impressions of rough and ready seamen, to his thrilling and brutal experiences of war. His travels saw him spanning the world, with stops at major ports such as Honolulu, Buenos Aires, Calcutta, and Liverpool. His life spans the changes in the shipping industry over the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. During the Civil War, Whidden was heavily involved in profitable island trading in the Bahamas to elude Confederate sailors. However, shortly after the close of the war, in 1870, Whidden left sailing as he found it being overtaken by foreign interests.
Plastic Ocean by Capt. Charles Moore, Cassandra Phillips, read by Mel Foster
How a Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the OceansIn the summer of 1997, Charles Moore set sail from Honolulu with the sole intention of returning home after competing in a trans-Pacific race. To get to California, he and his crew took a shortcut through the seldom-traversed North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a vast “oceanic desert” where winds are slack and sailing ships languish. There, Moore realized his catamaran was surrounded by a “plastic soup.” He had stumbled upon the largest garbage dump on the planet-a spiral nebula where plastic outweighed zooplankton, the ocean’s food base, by a factor of six to one. In Plastic Ocean, Moore recounts his ominous findings and unveils the secret life and hidden properties of plastics. From milk jugs to polymer molecules small enough to penetrate human skin or be unknowingly inhaled, plastic is now suspected of contributing to a host of ailments including infertility, autism, thyroid dysfunction, and some cancers. A call to action as urgent as Rachel Carson’s seminal Silent Spring, Moore’s sobering revelations will be embraced by activists, concerned parents, and seafaring enthusiasts concerned about the deadly impact and implications of this manmade blight.
Expedition Deep Ocean by Josh Young, read by Eric G. Dove
The First Descent to the Bottom of All Five of the World’s OceansThe riveting story of the history-making mission to reach the bottom of all five of the world’s oceans, the ultimate frontier of our planet.
Humankind has explored every continent on earth, climbed its tallest mountains, and gone into space. But the largest areas of our planet remain a mystery: the deep oceans. At over 36,000 feet deep, these areas closest to the earth’s core have remained nearly impossible to reach until now.
Technological innovations, engineering breakthroughs, and the derring-do of a unique team of engineers and scientists, led by explorer Victor Vescovo, brought together an audacious global quest to dive to the deepest points of all five oceans for the first time in history.
Expedition Deep Ocean reveals the marvelous and other, worldly life found in the ocean’s five deepest trenches, including several new species that have posed as of yet unanswered questions about survival and migration between oceans. Then there are the newly discovered seamounts that cause tsunamis when they are broken by shifting tectonic plates and jammed back into the earth’s crust, something that can now be studied to predict future disasters.
Continue browsing by clicking on the following keywords:
Ocean
Beach
Coast
Island
Sea