In this acclaimed novel, the Pulitzer Prize–finalist explores the perils, passions, and adventures of a young Nicaraguan immigrant trapped in Brooklyn. Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Publishers Weekly In the late 1980s, teenage Sandinista soldier and avowed communist Esteban Gaitán leaves Nicaragua to begin a new life in America. He soon arrives on a desolate Brooklyn pier with fourteen other men to form the crew of the ship Urus. Elias and Mark, the owners of the Urus, hold the men captive, forcing them to work in a vain attempt to make the rotting vessel seaworthy. Without the means to return home, Esteban remains a virtual prisoner, haunted by the loss of the woman he loved during the war. Eventually learning how to sneak off the ship, he makes nocturnal forays into Brooklyn, where he meets a Mexican immigrant named Joaquina, and begins to plot his permanent escape. Centering his novel around Esteban, but also telling the stories of his fellow landlocked sailors, Francisco Goldman proves once again that he is “a major talent of great style and soul” (The Miami Herald). “Often very funny . . . Here, a corner of Brooklyn becomes the exotic and foreign experience, and through Esteban’s eyes it is as mysterious and alluring as Tangiers.” —The Dallas Morning News

America seen through the eyes of the huddled masses. The hero is Estaban, one of a group of Central Americans brought to New York to crew a tramp ship, only to be abandoned by the ship's owners. When their food runs out Estaban, a former Nicaraguan guerrilla, goes ashore to steal for them. His forays lead him to a Latino neighborhood where he finds work and love. By the author of The Long Night of the White Chickens.

The Seaman's Friend is a treatise by Richard Henry Dana Jr. It details shipboard procedures during the 19th-century, such as setting sails and tying knots as well as the roles of crew members.

Able Seaman Albert Able seaman Albert is about the early life of a sailor in Nelson’s navy from his childhood in Yorkshire to his escaping the navy to marry in Jamaica. He becomes a topman, working aloft on square rigged ships. He suffers shipwreck, escape through France, the battle of Trafalgar and ensuing storm. In Jamaica slavery is portrayed through his relationship with a former slave of mixed race. It is historically accurate and has a punchy style. Imagery, pathos and humour are used to follow closely the feelings, emotions and loves of Albert, bringing the period alive.

This is a complete handbook for merchant seamen, covering every phase of good seamanship and all navigation necessary to prepare for the third mate's license. In addition, of course, it is a first-rate reference work. "For Seamen By Seamen, " this classic manual was first published in 1938 and has gone through a number of revisions. New for the 2001 reprint is the addition of an extensive glossary of nautical terms.