Recommended Books

Ernest Hemingway
1952

On our passage from the Dominican Republic to Cuba, we read this novella by Hemingway. The sea, an old fisherman, a big fish, and a tough fight—there’s not much more to it than that, and yet we can’t put the book down and have read it before we dock in Santiago de Cuba. In Havana, we visit Hemingway’s Finca Vigia and buy a small print showing an old man and a large fish skeleton. The picture has been sailing with us ever since.

Bernard Moitessier
1993

When French sailor Moitessier abandoned the first single-handed non-stop race around the world in 1969, which he had almost won, and sailed to the solitude of the Tahitian islands instead of the finish port, the whole world shook its head in disbelief. All alone and without stopping, he had sailed his Joshua around the three great capes – the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, and Cape Horn – when he set course for the Cape of Good Hope again in the South Atlantic and renounced fame and prize money. We read Moitessier’s book while we were traveling in the Lesser Antilles. For us, it was a declaration of love for nature and sailing and a return to the essential things in life.

Peter Nichols
2002

Moitessier wasn’t the only one who set sail in 1969 for the single-handed non-stop race around the world. Nine sailors set sail from England, some of whom couldn’t even sail or set off in boats that weren’t seaworthy. Ten months later, only one of the nine men crossed the finish line. A book about recklessness, courage, and death, and about how the sea can drive you mad. We shook our heads more than once while reading it. How dare they!

John Ironmonger
2015

The book tells the incredible story, which couldn’t be more relevant today, of a small coastal village that is put to the test by a stranded whale and a global crisis. A touching tale of humanity and solidarity in uncertain times. Alex devoured this book in San Blas. Many thanks to Eleanor for this wonderful gift!

Ernesto Che Guevara
2004 (new edition)

Anyone who travels to Cuba, as we did, cannot avoid engaging with the country’s political history. Part of that history is Ernesto Che Guevara: Argentine, revolutionary, idealist, doctor, Minister of Industry of Cuba, and ultimately murdered by a Bolivian soldier. Che’s life was anything but boring. He started out as an adventurer, driven by a social conscience and great curiosity. In his early years, he traveled through South America with a friend on an old motorcycle. This book is about that journey, which made us smile more than once.

Martin Finkbeiner
2021

Elmo is a ship’s elf. Since his ship sank, he lives on land in the peaceful town of Kapkap. One day, fate brings him a new boat, and he sets off to see the world. But nothing comes of it—because dark forces seek to bring ruin to the ocean and its inhabitants.

If we hadn’t met Martin Finkbeiner, who wrote this book, and his family in the middle of the ocean, we probably would never have met Elmo either. Both would have been a great loss! We have developed a close friendship with Martin, Riki, and their daughters Kira and Naia, who have been traveling on their sailboat Arancanga for years. Klabautermann Elmo is a wonderful children’s book, but not only that. Even we were enchanted by Elmo’s spirit of adventure and imagination.

Frank Schätzing
2009

Alex read this book over 14 years ago and still fondly remembers it. Due to ongoing climate change, the book is very timely and a fantastic work.

Julia Plant
2013

The story of Mike Plant, a successful American single-handed non-stop sailor. After his unexpected victory in the 1986-87 BOC round-the-world race, he planned to participate in the 1992 race, now called the Vendee Globe. However, he never arrived in France…

Herbert Clyde Lewis
2023 (new edition, first edition in English 1937)

A prosperous New York businessman suddenly falls into a mental crisis. To recover, he feels he must leave his gray, success-driven everyday life behind, and without further ado, he embarks on a sea voyage. No sooner is he at sea than the hoped-for relief actually sets in, but then… he takes a single wrong step and ends up in the middle of the Pacific, while his ship sails further and further away from him. What does a person think in such a situation? Where does he find hope? And how does he now view his life, which he was so tired of just a short time ago? We both hope that we will never have to ask ourselves such questions when we sail across the Pacific…

Anna Hope
2023

Four people, four centuries, fatefully connected.
In 2020, a writer travels with her family to a small Mexican coastal town, which is located off a white rock. It was to this very place that Jim Morrison fled in 1969, escaping the law, fanatical fans of The Doors, and an America scarred by the Vietnam War. Two sisters from the indigenous Yoeme tribe are abducted to this rock at the beginning of the 20th century. And in 1775, a Spanish lieutenant sets sail from here to advance the conquest of the continent. Four people connected by fate, symbolizing the many stories of slaves, colonialists, indigenous peoples, and vacationers we encountered during our first year in the Caribbean.

Rachel Carson
1951

In The Sea Around Us, the American biologist takes us into the secret world of the oceans. She weaves poetry with science, evolutionary history with myths. Carson tells of giant squids battling sperm whales, of tides shifting billions of tons of water, and of how we humans are littering our oceans. Day’s book is a reminder of how fragile our oceans are and, at the same time, how essential they are to all life on this planet. It is a book for all those who love science and poetry in equal measure.

Patrik Svensson
2023

“The celestial body we call our own is actually a planet of the sea.” For Patrik Svensson, the blue world is inextricably linked to his mother. It was she who once told him about mysterious deep-sea fish, awakening his curiosity about the unexplored, which continues to shape his writing to this day. After her death, Svensson sets out to trace their shared fascination. Starting with the ebb and flow of the tides, he recounts the wondrous rhythms of nature, follows the routes of ancient sailors, and listens to the conversations of sperm whales. “The Chronicler of the Seas” is a deeply personal story of the sea and curiosity—because for Svensson, looking into the depths is also a look into his own past. For us, reading this book was proof that science and poetry, the personal and the explored are not contradictions, but rather enrich, complement, and deepen each other in a wondrous way.

Stefan Zweig
1938

“Try to imagine how they set out on their tiny fishing boats into the unknown, unaware of the route, lost in infinity, constantly exposed to danger, at the mercy of every adversity of the weather, every torment of deprivation. No light at night, no drink but the brackish, lukewarm water from the barrels and the rainwater they collected, no food but crusted rusks and rancid cured bacon, and even this meager fare was often lacking for days on end. No bed and no room to rest, the heat devilish, the cold merciless, and on top of that the awareness of being alone, hopelessly alone, in this unforgiving desert of water. And I only had to begin to imagine these first voyages of the conquistadors of the sea, and I was already deeply ashamed of my impatience.”

How often have we asked ourselves the same questions when sailing far out at sea, alone? Stefan Zweig took these questions as an opportunity to write a book about Ferdinand Magellan— “a man who set sail from Seville with five tiny fishing boats to circumnavigate the entire globe – perhaps the most magnificent odyssey in the history of mankind, this voyage of two hundred and sixty-five determined men, of whom only eighteen returned home on battered ships, but with the flag of the greatest victory hoisted on the mast.”

Frank Vorpahl
2023

James Cook is considered the most important explorer after Columbus. Of course, without Tupaia, Maheine, and Mai, his voyages would have been impossible. They introduced Cook to the world of the South Seas, protected his ships from dangerous coral reefs, and saved him from being massacred by the Maori as an intruder in New Zealand. Tupaia, master navigator, high priest, and chief advisor to the rulers of Tahiti, created a nautical chart with more than 70 unknown islands, the first written document attesting to the tremendous nautical knowledge of Polynesian sailors, who had been sailing the Pacific in their ocean-going canoes for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. Maheine enabled Cook’s expedition to last three years on its second voyage and gain access to important cult objects. Mai was the only one to accompany them to London, where he achieved bizarre fame as the “wild South Sea prince.” When we sail across the Pacific in 2024, we will probably think of Tupaia, Maheine, and Mai on many a starry night, in awe of the knowledge they possessed about the stars.

Gunter Scholtz
2016

For over two and a half thousand years, the sea has preoccupied philosophy: Thales, the first philosopher of ancient Greece, regarded water as the source of all being; Kant believed that the oceans would gradually slow down the Earth’s rotation and thus inevitably bring about the end of the world; Edmund Burke chose the sight of the sea to define the concept of the sublime, and Hegel, in turn, warned his students that the act of philosophizing itself was like jumping into a boundless ocean
The philosophy of the sea allowed us to view the sea from the perspectives of important thinkers and various philosophical disciplines – from antiquity to modern times. During the many hours spent on the deck of Mabul, we often sink into philosophical thoughts ourselves. Who man is has always been revealed by his relationship to the sea.

Chris Dixon and Jeremy K. Spencer
2022

This is a book to browse through, at least that’s what we do at Mabul. It is a book with self-contained chapters, a reference work and one that makes you want to go to sea. This 360-page handbook covers a wide range of topics related to the sea: types of boats, nautical knots, Morse code, distress signals, survival techniques, water sports, weather phenomena, tides, waves, marine animals, and much more. It contains technical and practical knowledge, instructions, and tips on countless topics, accompanied by over 200 informative illustrations. It belongs in every boat library, which is why it’s also on Mabul.

Jimmy Cornell
2020 (new edition)

This book belongs on every sailing boat that sails the world’s oceans. From the tropical South Seas to Antarctica and on to the Arctic Ocean – with its 1,000 sailing routes, this book is a kind of bible for long-distance sailors. It contains information on winds, currents, weather phenomena, and the best sailing times in different regions. We refer to it again and again to plan our routes.

Published by Delius Klasing Verlag
2025

Over the course of more than 80 years, “Seemannschaft” has become a unique standard work. Keeping pace with developments in sailing, it has sold over 300,000 copies and become an indispensable guide, textbook, and reference work for generations of cruising sailors. For beginners, it is an introduction and overview, while for experienced skippers, it is a means of refreshing their memory. We constantly look up one or two German technical terms. This is because our sailing language is quite a mess and was primarily influenced by the American “Captain Tim,” from whom we learned the basics in his “From Zero to Hero” course in Pattaya (and a lot we didn’t learn…). A thick and solid standard work like this helps to fill in the gaps in our sailing knowledge.

Karin Wenger
2023

From 2009 to 2016, Karin was Radio SRF’s correspondent for South and Southeast Asia. During those years, she also reported on many crises: the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, where Mango, C&A, KIK, and Benetton had their clothes manufactured, and where over 1,100 seamstresses and tailors died. She covered the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide, the occupation of the city of Marawi in the Philippines by ISIS, and the war on drugs. After the news was over, Karin kept asking herself: How is Rozina, the seamstress who survived, doing today? Has Delfin, who was taken hostage by ISIS, been able to overcome his trauma? And what about the former English drummer who almost died of a heroin overdose and then became a monk? So she began to return to these people and accompanied them over many years. “Until the Next Monsoon – People in Extreme Situations” is a collection of portraits of survivors and provides insight into the “making of” Karin’s reports and where she herself reached her limits.

Karin Wenger
2023

In 2011, Karin takes a Vipassana meditation course in India and hears that this meditation technique is also taught to prisoners in Tihar Prison in New Delhi. What happens to prisoners, murderers, rapists, and innocent people who meditate for ten hours a day for ten days? she wonders. It was the beginning of a research project and a friendship. That’s how she met Jacob, a prisoner who had already completed four meditation courses. It is the story of a chance encounter and years of research in the depths of the corrupt prison world of Tihar in New Delhi, of a man who fell deeply and reinvented himself, and of a woman who was there to report on it.

Karin Wenger
2023

Afghan women were granted the right to vote eight years before Swiss women. In the 1970s, Kabul was a metropolis where women strolled through the streets in short dresses and without headscarves. Now everything is different. How did Afghanistan, once a place of longing, become a country marked by war and hopelessness? Karin searches for answers on her travels through the country. She tells the story of Mina, a once-respected singer, actress, and television presenter who has been her companion for ten years. Mina’s life was full of hope and music—until she lost her homeland. Karin also recounts her missions with the US Army and her experiences in the drug-growing regions—Afghanistan is the world’s leading supplier of opium, and that has not changed under Taliban rule.

Karin Wenger
2008

Karin lived in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories for several years, where she also completed her studies and worked as a freelance journalist. Even then, just a few years after the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, she noticed how this conflict polarized people like no other. However, it is mainly those events that make headlines that are noticed: Palestinian suicide bombings, Israeli military invasions, and failed peace negotiations. In Checkpoint Huwara, Karin lets Israeli and Palestinian “heroes” tell the story of their everyday lives. From their perspective, they report on constant fear and overwhelm, and on how military service turns people into machines. And they talk about walls and barriers, not only those built by Israel to separate the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from Israel, but above all the wall of silence. Karin published the book in 2008, but unfortunately, it is now more relevant than ever, following the horrific attacks by Hamas on civilians in Israel and Israel’s brutal retaliatory strikes in the Gaza Strip. The book is an attempt to explain why the spiral of violence will continue unless the underlying conflict is resolved.