It’s a Book!

It’s been a busy few months here on From the Deck Chair, and now that it is officially 2013, I can finally announce why.

For the past few months, I’ve been working furiously on a coffee-table photo book dedicated to cruise ships and modern cruising.  I’m on the tail-end of finishing the text for the book, which is set to be published late this summer by UK-based Pen & Sword Publishing, who offer a catalogue of amazing number of titles on maritime, transportation, historical and warfare.

The Golden Age of Cruising exists all around us – and soon, in print form, too. Photo © Aaron Saunders

At this point, I can’t give you a firm release date or a title (we have a tentative “working title” at the moment). But the exciting thing is that it is slowly but surely winding its way into reality, and I will have more news to announce in a few months’ time (it won’t be called From the Deck Chair, though )

Why modern cruise ships? Well, because I love them.  But the other reason is that while there’s a whole host of fabulous coffee-table photo books dedicated to some of the greatest ocean liners of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, very few focus on the cruise industry building boom that was sparked in 1988 by the construction of Royal Caribbean’s Sovereign of the Seas.

She was the ship that changed everything. Suddenly, the ex-ocean liner tonnage that had typically made up the average cruise line fleet began to look very old and dated indeed. Sovereign of the Seas set the benchmark for every cruise line to follow, because whether they targeted mainstream, luxury or niche markets, the shift in how people perceived cruising – and cruise ships – and begun.

Photo © 2012 Aaron Saunders

Over 40 different ships are featured in this forthcoming book. Some are old favorites, while others might be head-scratchers at first glance.  Each, though, directly influenced the cruise industry in some way, resulting in the modern, feature-laden ships we sail on today.

My biggest reason for wanting to write this book was that I truly believe that someday, we will look back on this period in history with the same sort of nostalgia we reserve now for liners like the Normandie and France.

The new Golden Age of Cruising is all around us.

From the Deck Chair will return tomorrow.