Staff Pick: The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat

One of the classic naval adventure stories of World War II, Monsarrat's novel tells the tale of two British ships trying to escape destruction by wolf pack U-boats hunting in the North Atlantic. "...But the men are the stars of the story. The only heroines are the ships and the only villain the cruel sea itself." And so it is, this engrossing, enormous record of the years 1939 and on into 1945, of Atlantic convoy duty aboard the corvette, Compass Rose, and later, on the frigate, Saltash. They roam from the Mediterranean to the Arctic and there the Compass Rose meets her end, as do 80 out of the 91 aboard. This is the time-track; the sound-track misses nothing of untidy battle and gruesome death, ribald and masculine comedy, personal and marital problems, tangible and intangible changes against the progress of the war; the horror, terror, elation and pity on the human front and the unrelenting, ever-waiting merciless and impersonal sea. A book that speaks to you and makes you part of its story.
(Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 1951)