Shipboard Reading

I read a lot of books while at sea during my Navy years and at this time fifty years ago I had taken a large number of classic sci-fi and adventure books with me on our six month cruise in the Mediterranean Sea. 

I've recently and currently have been reading some Jules Verne novels which reminded me that I had done the same thing back in the day.

I read about ten Edgar Rice Burroughs on that cruise or right after it and several books by H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, James Michener, John Steinbeck, Irving Stone, Jack London and Joseph Conrad. A lot of the guys on the ship were reading Louis L'Mour Western novels and I ended up borrowing and reading seven of them. I also read a couple of soon to be classics on that cruise... The Godfather, The Exorcist.

I often read a lot of books in my bunk in the berthing compartment. Most of the guys living together in our area spent most of their spare time playing cards. I did it for awhile too but by my second year at sea I was done with all that card playing. It ruined me for card playing for life. The best place to read a book on board the ship was out on the deck and in particular the helicopter flight deck when it wasn't in use of course.

The Edgar Rice Burroughs book in the photo was a novel that combined two of my favorite Burroughs series... Tarzan and At The Earth's Core.