June is National Ocean Month and June 8 is World Oceans Day. Danville may not be anywhere near an ocean, but that’s where the magic of books comes in. Ride the waves in the Pacific, explore shipwrecks in the Atlantic, or learn how to help preserve the world’s oceans with this list of books.

Ahab’s return : or, The last voyage / Jeffrey Ford.

“A bold and intriguing fabulist novel that reimagines two of the most legendary characters in American literature–Captain Ahab and Ishmael of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick–from the critically acclaimed Edgar and World Fantasy award-winning author of The Girl in the Glass and The Shadow Year. At the end of a long journey, Captain Ahab returns to the mainland to confront the true author of the novel Moby-Dick, his former shipmate, Ishmael. For Ahab was not pulled into the ocean’s depths by a harpoon line, and the greatly exaggerated rumors of his untimely death have caused him grievous harm–after hearing about Ahab’s demise, his wife and child left Nantucket for New York, and now Ahab is on a desperate quest to find them. Ahab’s pursuit leads him to The Gorgon’s Mirror, the sensationalist tabloid newspaper that employed Ishmael as a copy editor while he wrote the harrowing story of the ill-fated Pequod. In the penny press’s office, Ahab meets George Harrow, who makes a deal with the captain: the newspaperman will help Ahab navigate the city in exchange for the exclusive story of his salvation from the mouth of the great white whale. But their investigation–like Ahab’s own story–will take unexpected, dangerous, and ultimately tragic turns. Told with wisdom, suspense, a modicum of dry humor and horror, and a vigorous stretching of the truth, Ahab’s Return charts an inventive and intriguing voyage involving one of the most memorable characters in classic literature, and pays homage to one of the greatest novels ever written”– Provided by publisher.

Encyclopedia of the sea / written and illustrated by Richard Ellis.

Ellis’s research has taken him all over the world, from Nantucket to Patagonia, from Newfoundland to New Zealand. Now, with more than 450 of his own illustrations, he takes readers from A to Z (abalone to zooxanthelae) in this one unprecedented volume of the sea. of color paintings. 471 illustrations. From one of the world’s leading experts on the sea comes this ocean-sized compendium of aquatic life and lore. Richard Ellis, who is also recognized as America’s foremost painter of marine subjects, gives us a masterful synthesis of years of investigation and tens of thousands of disparate sources. The result is the first comprehensive, fully illustrated, and highly readable reference on almost everything that is known about the sea. Ellis’s research has taken him all over the world, from Nantucket to Patagonia, from Newfoundland to New Zealand. Now he leads us on a great journey: from the amazing diversity of the creatures of the oceans to the birds who inhabit the skies above them; from the little-known realms of marine geography to the men and women who have bravely explored them; from the fabulous legends the sea has inspired through the ages to the intriguing evolution of the tools of nautical navigation. With more than 450 of the author’s own drawings and paintings accompanying the text, Ellis reveals the many wonders of the oceans, abalone, zooxanthellae, and everything in between. We learn about the peculiar behavior of Vampyroteuthis infernalis (the vampire squid from hell) and about Mocha Dick, the real sperm whale that may have inspired Melville’s Moby-Dick; where the crown-of-thorns starfish gets its name and how the rare coelacanth, cousin to a species extinct for 70 million years, and one of the most mispronounced fish in the sea, was rediscovered. We visit lovely and exotic locations from Venice to Ni’ihau (Hawaii’s forbidden isle), and consider both the fearsome kraken (a mythical sea monster often seen by Scandinavian clergymen) and the notorious real-life pirate Captain Kidd (whose hidden treasure was never found). Exhaustive, concise, and entertaining, the Encyclopedia of the Sea is invaluable as an all-inclusive, one-volume source for anyone interested in the sea, its inhabitants, and man’s exploration of its mysteries.

Into the raging sea : thirty-three mariners, one megastorm, and the sinking of El Faro / Rachel Slade.

On October 1, 2015, Hurricane Joaquin barreled into the Bermuda Triangle and swallowed the container ship El Faro whole, resulting in the worst American shipping disaster in thirty-five years. No one could fathom how a vessel equipped with satellite communications, a sophisticated navigation system, and cutting-edge weather forecasting could suddenly vanish–until now. Relying on hundreds of interviews with family members and maritime experts, as well as the words of the crew members themselves–whose conversations were captured by the ships data recorder–journalist Rachel Slade unravels the mystery of the sinking of El Faro. As she recounts the final twenty-four hours onboard, Slade vividly depicts the officers anguish and fear as they struggled to carry out Captain Michael Davidson’s increasingly bizarre commands, which, they knew, would steer them straight into the eye of the storm. Taking a hard look at America’s aging merchant marine fleet, Slade also reveals the truth about modern shipping–a cut-throat industry plagued by razor-thin profits and ever more violent hurricanes fueled by global warming.

The oyster thief / Sonia Faruqi.

Coralline is a mermaid who is engaged to the merman of her dreams. But when an oil spill wreaks havoc on her idyllic village life, her little brother falls gravely ill. Desperate to save him, she embarks on a quest to find a legendary elixir made of starlight. Izar, a human man, is on the cusp of an invention that will enable him to mine the depths of the ocean. His discovery will soon make him the richest man on earth–while threatening merpeople with extinction. But then, suddenly, Izar finds himself transformed into a merman and caught in a web of betrayal and intrigue. Meeting Coralline in the ocean, he decides to join her on her quest for the elixir, hoping it will turn him human again. Ultimately, each of them faces an impossible choice.

Plastic soup : an atlas of ocean pollution / Michiel Roscam Abbing ; translation by Tessera Translations ; design by Nico Richter ; infographics by Jan Vork.

Plastics have transformed every aspect of our lives. Yet the very properties that make them attractive – they are cheap to make, light, and durable – spell disaster when trash makes its way into the environment. Plastic Soup: An Atlas of Ocean Pollution is a beautifully-illustrated survey of the plastics clogging our seas, their impacts on wildlife and people around the world, and inspirational initiatives designed to tackle the problem. In Plastic Soup, Michiel Roscam Abbing of the Plastic Soup Foundation reveals the scope of the issue: plastic trash now lurks on every corner of the planet. With striking photography and graphics, Plastic Soup brings this challenge to brilliant life for readers. Yet it also sends a message of hope; although the scale of the problem is massive, so is the dedication of activists working to check it. Plastic Soup highlights a diverse array of projects to curb plastic waste and raise awareness, from plastic-free grocery stores to innovative laws and art installations. According to some estimates, if we continue on our current path, the oceans will contain more plastic than fish by the year 2050. Created to inform and inspire readers, Plastic Soup is a critical tool in the fight to reverse this trend.

The sea around us. / Rachel Carson; Drawings by Katherine L. Howe.

Published in 1951, The Sea Around Us is one of the most remarkably successful books ever written about the natural world. Rachel Carson’s rare ability to combine scientific insight with moving, poetic prose catapulted her book to first place on The New York Times best-seller list, where it enjoyed wide attention for thirty-one consecutive weeks. It remained on the list for more than a year and a half and ultimately sold well over a million copies, has been translated into 28 languages, inspired an Academy Award-winning documentary, and won both the 1952 National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal.This classic work remains as fresh today as when it first appeared. Carson’s writing teems with stunning, memorable images–the newly formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky; the centuries of nonstop rain that created the oceans; giant squids battling sperm whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface; and incredibly powerful tides moving 100 billion tons of water daily in the Bay of Fundy. Quite simply, she captures the mystery and allure of the ocean with a compelling blend of imagination and expertise.Reintroducing a classic work to a whole new generation of readers, this Special Edition features a new chapter written by Jeffrey Levinton, a leading expert in marine ecology, that brings the scientific side of The Sea Around Us completely up to date. Levinton incorporates the most recent thinking on continental drift, coral reefs, the spread of the ocean floor, the deterioration of the oceans, mass extinction of sea life, and many other topics. In addition, acclaimed nature writer Ann Zwinger has contributed a brief foreword.Today, with the oceans endangered by the dumping of medical waste and ecological disasters such as the Exxon oil spill in Alaska, this illuminating volume provides a timely reminder of both the fragility and the importance of the ocean and the life that abounds within it. Anyone who loves the sea, or who is concerned about our natural environment, will want to read this classic work.

The wave : in pursuit of the rogues, freaks and giants of the ocean / Susan Casey.

This book is about colossal ship swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out. For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100 feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories, waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships have vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet’s waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea, including several that approached 100 feet. As scientists scramble to understand this phenomenon, others view the giant waves as the ultimate challenge. These are extreme surfers who fly around the world trying to ride the ocean’s most destructive monsters. The pioneer of extreme surfing is the legendary Laird Hamilton, who, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to board suicidally large waves of 70 and 80 feet. The author follows this unique tribe of people as they seek to conquer the holy grail of their sport, a 100 foot wave. In this account, the exploits of Hamilton and his fellow surfers are juxtaposed against scientists’ urgent efforts to understand the destructive powers of waves, from the tsunami that wiped out 250,000 people in the Pacific in 2004 to the 1,740 foot wave that recently leveled part of the Alaskan coast. The book portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious.