[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by gmw

Ah, I wondered whether I'd get any guessers ... but I will remove the mysteries. They are all well known books.

The 1974 thriller. JSWolf, you hit the nail with the thriller movie bit (wondering if you had this in mind when you said it). Jaws by Peter Benchley. I've never read it, but the reviews at Goodreads suggest it could be quite readable. Lots of beach, lots of water, it's a good match to the theme.

I've read Jaws and it is a good book.

The 1957 apocalyptic story was On the Beach by Neville Shute. I rejected this partly on the grounds that comments about Shute on here, when A Town like Alice was read, were less than enthusiastic.

I've read On the Beach. Excellent book.

The 1993 literary novel was The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I've never read it even though there is a paper copy sitting on the shelf. I figured "shipping" should have some water in it somewhere, so this theme would make a good excuse to get to it.

I've never read The Shipping News or even heard of it. So no comment there.

The 1870 classic was, of course, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne. Hard to get more watery than that.

I've not read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I have seen the movie. I do have the Baen version that has restored text that was edited out. It's a long one at 417 ADE pages.

Featured in Ron Miller’s “The Conquest of Space Book Series.” This special edition of Jules Verne's classic novel corrects more than 3000 errors in the original 1872 English translation and replaces the 23% of text that had been expurgated by the original translator for political, ideological and other reasons.

I didn't mention it earlier, but I also considered Jeanette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping (2004), which sounds interesting to me (see on Goodreads).

I have hear of Lighthousekeeping, but that's all I know of it. This one has reminded me of an excellent book I'll be nominating.