Deep Blue: Stories of Shipwreck, Sunken Treasure and Survival

From the Titanic nightmare to Robinson Crusoe's deserted island fantasy, shipwrecks have long been an obsession of adventure literature. The latest in Avalon's outdoor adventure series, Deep Blue: Stories of Shipwreck, Sunken Treasure and Survival presents 13 tales of the sea's treachery. Genre fans will have already read pieces by Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson, but newer writing from Bucky McMahon, Farley Mowat, Patrick O'Brian and William Golding, as well as firsthand accounts from survivors like Philip Ashton and Rockwell Kent, also appear. Most of the work was previously published elsewhere, so the collection, by Adrenaline editors Nate Hardcastle and Clint Willis (who edited Epic: Stories of Survival from the World's Highest Peaks), though high-quality, breaks little new ground. 15 b&w photos. ( Aug.)