Ryan Collins

December has arrived, so I figured it fitting to publish a post about good wintertime reads.

These books are perfect for the angler, or anyone who loves reading about Cape Cod, the beach, and the ocean.

This post originally appeared in our forum during the winter of 2015. I owe a big thank you to all the members who helped to create this list!

So without further ado, and in no particular order, here are our top 10 winter reads for fishermen (and all people who love Cape Cod).

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#10 - The Outermost House by Henry Beston

Recommended by MFCC creator Ryan Collins

A chronicle of a solitary year spent in the dunes of Eastham, The Outermost House has long been recognized as a classic of American nature writing.

Henry Beston had originally planned to spend just two weeks in his seaside home, but was so possessed by the mysterious beauty of his surroundings that he found he "could not go."

Instead, he sat down to try and capture in words the wonders of the magical landscape he found himself in thrall to: the migrations of seabirds, the rhythms of the tide, the windblown dunes, and the scatter of stars in the changing summer sky.

Beston argued that, "The world today is sick to its thin blood for the lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot."

Seventy-five years after they were first published, many would argue that Beston's words are more true than ever.

#9 - Those Pearly Isles by Harold Wilson

Recommended by MFCC member Steve O'Malley

Those Pearly Isles is about a New Bedford High School teacher preparing a group of students (The Cuttyhunk Commandoes) for a 1973 spring field trip to Cuttyhunk Island, where they eventually visit the Gosnold Memorial Monument.

Woven in throughout the book is a detailed history of the Elizabeth Islands, from Barthalomew Gosnold's first landing and temporary settlement in the early 1600's, through the island being protected by a King's Grant issued to the Forbes family.

A thin paperback that is a light read, accompanied by good photos.

#8 - Castaways by George Cadwalader

Recommended by MFCC member Steve O'Malley

Castaways provides a look at the efforts of some local folks and the Massachusetts Juvenile Corrections System, to establish and maintain a "last chance" facility on Penekise Island, with the goal of keeping urban delinquent kids out of the adult prison system.

The book presents a history of Penekise Island (from back to the leper colony days), the relationship with residents of nearby Cuttyhunk, and of course stories of the kids who found themselves pulled from society and shipped off to the barren island.

This is definitely a good read, with some sad, and absolutely hilarious tales of managing these kids on the island, while trying to get through to them and change the course of their lives.

#7 - Caught: One Man's Maniacal Pursuit of a 60 Pound Striped Bass by Jeff Nichols

Caught is a nervy, quotable, important exposé, full of lively anecdotes, and marginal colorful characters.” - Joan Baum, NPR Dan's Papers

"This is an eye-opening account of the black market striped bass industry, and a vivid portrayal of one man's fishing addiction that contributed to it. With chapters like 'The Full Moon Beckons Like a Crack Pipe,' the reader is drawn into the world of obsessive striped bass fishing and this angler's eventual descent into the underground market to support the ever-growing expenses of his fishing habit. But it's the Striped Bass as a species that suffer the most, as stocks are - once again - pushed into decline.” --John Skinner, Noreast.com, author of A Season on the Edge.

#6 - Islands In The Stream by Ernest Hemmingway

Recommended by MFCC member Billy Mitchell

First published in 1970, nine years after Hemingway's death, this is the story of an artist and adventurer -- a man much like Hemingway himself.

Beginning in the 1930s, Islands In The Stream follows the fortunes of Thomas Hudson, from his experiences as a painter on the Gulf Stream island of Bimini through his antisubmarine activities off the coast of Cuba during World War II.

Hemingway is at his mature best in this beguiling tale.

#5 - Reading The Water by Robert Post

Recommended by MFCC member Paul Moriarty

The surf fishermen of Martha's Vineyard are the heroes of Reading The Water. Brought together by a longtime Vineyard fisherman, these colorful men and women offer advice, insight, and the inevitable tall tales.

There is Nelson Bryant, about to haul in a fifty-pound striper only to be cut off by an unseasoned newcomer who casts a plug over his line. There is Whit Manter, doggedly pursuing the next strike, the next rush of adrenaline, the next exhilarating struggle far into the surf and the eerie blackness of the night. And Janet Messineo, dragging a Derby-winning bluefish across the beach at dawn; hair matted, face drawn with fatigue, hands sliced and punctured, she's the epitome of the sporting woman.

Intense and determined, the surf fishermen face cold, exhaustion, or a line gone slack at the height of battle. They prowl the beaches, testing their wits and lures against the sea's bounty . . . and each other.

While the romance and excitement of the hunt is at the core of these tales, there is practical information to be gained - about the subtleties of tide and current, the phase of the moon, the direction of the wind, the best baits and lures. It's a stirring testament to one of the most delightful corners of angling, in one of its richest locales.

#4 - Twenty Years On The Cape by Frank Daignault

Recommended by MFCC member Ed Wagner

The story of an era that we will probably never see again, Twenty Years On The Cape is an exciting narrative on rod and reel commercial fishing from the beach for striped bass set on Cape Cod, Massachusetts during the 60s and 70s.

The author has woven the rise and fall of striper populations with adventures and how-to information. Twenty Years was first published in 1989, went out of print, then became a collectable before recently being republished by the author.

#3 - Cod: A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World by Mark Kurlansky

Recommended by MFCC member Mark Szymkowicz

Cod, Mark Kurlansky’s third work of nonfiction and winner of the 1999 James Beard Award, is the biography of a single species of fish, but it may as well be a world history with this humble fish as its recurring main character.

Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod, frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack.

What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod. As we make our way through the centuries of cod history, we also find a delicious legacy of recipes, and the tragic story of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once their numbers were legendary.

In this lovely, thoughtful history, Mark Kurlansky ponders the question: Is the fish that changed the world forever changed by the world's folly?

#2 - In The Heart Of The Sea: The Tragedy Of The Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

Recommended by MFCC creator Ryan Collins 

Winner of the National Book Award, Nathaniel Philbrick's In The Heart Of The Sea is a fantastic saga of survival and adventure, steeped in the lore of whaling, with deep resonance in American literature and history.

In 1820, the whaleship Essex left Nantucket, sailing thousands of miles into the Pacific, where it was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats.

Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents and vivid details about the Nantucket whaling tradition to reveal the chilling facts of this infamous maritime disaster. In the Heart of the Sea, recently adapted into a major feature film starring Chris Hemsworth, is a book for the ages.

#1 - The Finest Hours by Michael Tougias & Casey Sherman

Recommended by MFCC member Mark Szymkowicz

In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor’easter in years. As the weather wreaked havoc on land, the freezing Atlantic became a wind-whipped zone of peril, setting the stage for one of the most heroic rescue stories ever lived.

In the early hours of Monday, February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer found themselves in the same horrifying predicament. Built with "dirty steel," and not prepared to withstand such ferocious seas, both tankers split in two, leaving the dozens of men on board utterly at the Atlantic’s mercy.

The Finest Hours ​is the gripping, true story of the valiant attempt to rescue the souls huddling inside the broken halves of the two ships.

The spellbinding tale is overflowing with breathtaking scenes, as boats capsize, bows and sterns crash into one another, and men hurl themselves into the raging sea in their terrifying battle for survival.

Not all of the eighty-four men caught at sea in the midst of that brutal storm survived, but considering the odds, it’s a miracle—and a testament to their bravery—that any came home to tell their tales at all.