The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
4 Rating(s)
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The Cruel Sea

Author: Nicholas Monsarrat

Narrator: Simon Vance

Unabridged: 17 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/09/2016

Synopsis

Based on the author’s own vivid experiences, The Cruel Sea is the nail-biting story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys during World War II.Darting back and forth across the icy North Atlantic, Compass Rose played a deadly cat-and-mouse game with packs of German U-boats lying in wait beneath the ocean waves.Packed with tension and vivid descriptions of agonizing U-boat hunts, this tale of the most bitter and chilling campaign of the war tells of ordinary men who had to master their own fears before they could face a brutal menace—one which would strike without warning from the deep.

About Nicholas Monsarrat

Nicholas Monsarrat (1910–1979) was born in Liverpool and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in World War II, first as a member of an ambulance brigade and then as a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His lifelong love of sailing made him a capable naval officer, and he served with distinction on a series of small warships. Resigning his wartime commission in 1946, he entered the diplomatic service. He turned to writing full time in 1959, settling on the Mediterranean island of Gozo until his death.

About Simon Vance

Simon Vance is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with over fifty Earphones Awards and thirteen prestigious Audie Awards. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Philip on October 23, 2019

All fiction is said to be autobiographical, and there are few books where this is more apparent than in The Cruel Sea. It was written shortly after the Second World War by an author whose wartime experience on the convoy routes of the North Atlantic closely mirrored those that he portrays. Indeed, t......more

Goodreads review by A.L. on January 08, 2017

There are so many good things to say about this novel. The characters and the situations felt so real. Action, angst, humor, growth—it’s got all the stuff of a great novel. It showed so many aspects of the war at sea—the melding of men into an effective crew, the challenging weather, the u-boats, an......more

Goodreads review by Bevan Lewis on February 15, 2017

This is an exceptional book of World War 2 and of the sea. With deep authenticity derived from the author's own experiences, and conveyed through unpretentious but powerful prose, the story and characters are brilliantly drawn. Through the initial fitting out of one of the first corvettes, through t......more

Quotes

“Powerful…The dominant quality of this sturdy novel is compassion.” Atlantic

“An impressive novel, portraying the war at sea with emotion, drama, tenderness, and terror.” Chicago Tribune

“A book that speaks to you and makes you part of its story.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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