Helen Plum Library

From the author of Mayflower, Valiant Ambition, and In the Hurricane's Eye—the riveting bestseller tells the story of the true events that inspired Melville's Moby-Dick. 
Winner of the National Book Award, Nathaniel Philbrick's book is a fantastic saga of survival and adventure, steeped in the lore of whaling, with deep resonance in American literature and history.
In 1820,...

During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600s, an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story

Co-authored by a renowned psychologist and survival expert, this book delves into the details of how a little girl survived the at-sea murder of her family; the pod of whales who guarded her; and the aftermath and the recapturing of life

William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," is a classic comedy of mistaken identities, a device employed in a number of the bard's plays, which is believed to have been written sometime between 1601 and 1602. When Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria she is separated from her twin brother Sebastian, who she mistakenly believes to be dead. With the help of the ship captain who rescues her, she enters into the service of Duke Orsino, who has fallen...

Pi Patel, a zookeeper's son, sets sail for America with his family, but when the ship sinks, he finds himself lost at sea on a life boat with four animals, which eventually dwindle down to one--a hungry Bengal tiger

The year is 1659. There is a shipwreck and the sole survivor Robinson Crusoe is washed ashore on a deserted island. Suddenly faced with a hostile wilderness, he carves out a life for himself. This is a story about the human spirit's ability to endure what seem insurmountable challenges

Albert and Sylvia Caldwell were one of those rare Titanic families who lived through the tragedy at sea. Their lucky rescue aboard the Lifeboat 13 is told for the first time here. But the trip was only one part of a bigger nightmare. The Caldwells had been Presbyterian missionaries in Bangkok, Siam, but fled in what they described as a desperate journey around the world to save Sylvia's health. Fellow missionaries, however, believed that the couple...

Science fiction drama about two space enemies who crash on a desolate planet and gradually realize that in order to survive they must overcome their hatred of each other

Prospero, wise Duke of Milan, has been deposed by Antonio, his wicked brother and exiled with his daughter Miranda to a mysterious island. But Prospero possesses supernatural powers. Composed at the end of Shakespeare's career, the play contains some of his most lyrical dramatic verse

"In the tradition of Erik Larson's Dead Wake comes The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria, about the sinking of the glamorous Italian ocean liner, including never-before-seen photos of the wreck today. In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. Unlike the Titanic, this sinking played out in real time across radios and televisions, the first disaster...