I’ve just returned from my first ever cruise! In preparation, I watched many YouTube videos with titles like “Top Ten Tips for Making Boarding Seamless” and “The Eight Things You Should Never Pack for a Cruise.” I purchased anti-nausea medicine, wristbands, and ear patches. I consulted with cruise expert and fellow MMD team member Brigid. And of course, as a book lover, I checked out a stack of books set on cruise ships. What better way to prepare for a week aboard a cruise ship than to read stories of maritime adventure and mystery?
It turns out my “research” may have been ill-advised. If these books are to be believed, I should have expected a week of heightened family tensions, duplicitous crew members, and even a murder or two. After reading the books below, I was left hoping my cruise will be significantly less thrilling than those on the page!
The list below features three essays from non-fiction collections, offering a cautionary account of the authors’ own less-than-stellar experiences at sea. Beyond that, the novels I read covered the whole spectrum: sun-kissed Caribbean journeys, icy Northern expeditions, historical epics set on grand ocean liners, and modern-day whodunits unfolding in claustrophobic cabins. In short, cruise ship literature provides a boatload of drama and intrigue, whether fictional or firsthand.
I would love to hear from you about any books I may have missed, and also your tips and tricks to make the most of any cruise vacation!
9 books about cruises
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Death on the Nile
The Unsinkable Greta James
IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas
The Floating Feldmans
The Cuban Heiress
Bossypants
Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
The Woman in Cabin 10
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
Have you read any books about cruises? Any tips for folks going on a cruise? Please share in the comments.
P.S. Travel around the world with these 20 novels and 20 novels that will transport you to the shore.
About the author
Sara Aeder is our What Should I Read Next Community Manager. Her go-to books include gentle and witty fiction, pop culture essays, and humorous and twisty whodunnits.
44 comments
I recently read The Float Plan while on a cruise to the Bahamas. It’s not set on a cruise ship (more like a houseboat), but they traveled to locations where I was at the time, such as Bimini and Nassau. Fun!
We had a stop in Nassau! We went on a pirate ship!
The David Foster Wallace essay is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. My husband and I liked it so much we chose it when it was our turn to pick something for our couples’s book group to read. It was a hit! Highly recommended.
Definitely made me anxious about cruises though! He really was a master.
I was going to suggest Bossypants if it hadn’t made the list! Before the last cruise my husband and I went on I had checked the audiobook out from the library and made him listen to the cruise chapter while we were in the car — he was cracking up listening to it!
The first time I read Bossypants was when my husband and I were dating, and we took our first international plane ride together. He gave it to me and immediately regretted it because I was cracking up the whole plane ride!
I highly recommend Killers of a Certain Age, where 4 female newly retired assassins are given a cruise vacation as their send off gift.
Yes! Love this book. I wish this was made into a series.
Good news! Deanna Raybourn announced there will be a sequel to ‘Killers of a Certain Age.’ It will be out Spring 2025 and is called ‘Kills Well With Others. ‘https://www.deannaraybourn.com/blog/announcement/
Just borrowed in Libby, thank you!
That was such a fun read!
I did read that one! Didnt think to include it here, but you are right!
Displacement by Lucy Knisley is a graphic memoir about Lucy accompanying her grandparents on a cruise.
I immediately thought of this one too!
Oh that sounds fun!
Another great one for a cruise is “Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them.” It provides a lot of historical background for the history of ocean travel and focuses on the stories of the women in the narrative.
What an interesting historical insight!
Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard is a great mystery thriller that partially takes place on a cruise ship. This is by the same author of 56 Days.
Thanks for the rec, Lindsey!
I have read “The Woman in Cabin 10,” “The Floating Feldmans,” and “Where’s You Go, Bernadette?,” and I liked them all!
Sounds like it’s time for you to go on a cruise too!
Terns of Endearment by Donna Andrews is another great one set on a cruise. It’s one in the mystery series about Meg Langslow and her quirky family.
Quirky families AND mystery…a combination of the books I read!
I have yet to work up the courage to read “Cabin Fever: Trapped on board a cruise ship when the pandemic hit. A true story of heroism and survival at sea.” I am intrigued as I recently cruised with the line the events took place on (though not the same ship), but I am worried it will put me off cruising forever! For what it’s worth, I have been on three cruises on three separate lines, with my fourth coming up in two months, and I do enjoy it very much.
Ah, I don’t think I can stomach that! Luckily my cruise was illness free!
This is such a good list! I’ve been wanting to read ‘The Floating Feldmans’ because I LOVEd Elyssa Friedland’s ‘Last Summer at the Golden Hotel’ — family hijinks at a resort in the Catskills. Thanks for the nudge to read Feldmans.
I also want to add ‘The Last Cruise’ by Kate Christensen — it has a darker vibe and/but I loved it. A 1950s ocean liner is making a final trip from LA to Hawaii. To celebrate, it’s all retro: no cell phone, vintage menu, string quartet, that kind of thing. It’s very character driven and has an upstairs/downstairs thing between the guests and the crew. A little bit like Downton-Abbey-at-sea or the reality show Below Deck, but literary. It’s so good.
Thank you! And that DOES sound intriguing!
Brian David Bruns wrote a series of books about working in a cruise ship beginning with “Cruise Confidential”. I enjoyed reading about his experiences and got a peek of the behind the scenes work of cruise ships.
I am so fascinated about the behind the scenes. I spoke to a bunch of people who worked on the ship to get a sense of what it is like for crew members.
I fully recommend ‘Wonder Cruise’ by Ursula Bloom, a reprinted 1934 novel. A dowdy spinster books a cruise that changes her life!
Another good one to read (but perhaps after you have returned from your cruise) is the Poseidon Adventure!
Thanks Michelle Ann!
This was a fun round-up! I’d love to see a round-up of some of your favorite modern iterations of Agatha Christie books!
I can’t stop talking about Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (and the upcoming sequel, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect) by Benjamin Stevenson. Very Christie inspired.
Those are on my TBR, I didn’t realize they were Christie-inspired. Definitely pushing them to the top of my list!
“The Jetsetters” by Amanda Eyre Ward hasn’t been mentioned yet: “Widowed Charlotte is in her early 70s, and her best friend has just died. Feeling lonely and aimless, she longs to spend time with all three of her children. Charlotte enters an essay contest with a luxury cruise on the Splendido Marveloso as the first prize. When she wins, she summons all of her children, who reluctantly agree to join her.”
Here’s my review, from 2020:
https://saturdayreader.wordpress.com/2020/06/06/the-jetsetters-by-amanda-eyre-ward/
I wonder how it compares to the Floating Feldmans! I’ll take a look, thanks for the rec!
I love this list! Two more that I thought of right away were Angie Hockman’s Shipped and This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison. These have very different vibes from one another but I really enjoyed them both. Also really loved Jennifer E, Smith’s Greta James 🙂
I loved “This is Your Life, Harriet Chance” – I read it last summer before our Alaska cruise. Another interesting read is “I May Be Homeless, But You Should See My Yacht” which is a memoir by a widow who sells everything to live full time on a cruise ship. My great-great-grandmother took a Cunard cruise in the early 1900s, visiting much of the Mediterranean including what was then called Palestine. Her diary, which I inherited, is fascinating to read. Maybe that’s where I caught my cruise bug?
Thank you Crystal!
“The Last One” by Will Dean is one cruise novel you do NOT want to read before a cruise!
Noted!
On our last cruise I read This is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison which takes place on an Alaskan cruise (which is what we were on) and Cruise Ship SOS by Ben MacFarlane, which is a memoir written by a cruise ship physician. I enjoyed both of these books.
A very funny “cruise” book is Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen, older but still great!
Bert and Mamie Take a Cruise sounds like a good one