I once saw the wreck of a small pleasure boat perched on the rocks in Cape May, New Jersey. It was green, slimy, and hauntingly lonesome. Shipwrecks have always given me goosebumps, but they're fascinating nonetheless. I was reminded of this when CNN recently reported the discovery of a World War II PT boat shipwreck, revealed after the tragic April 2 earthquake in the Solomon Islands. Apparently, the quake raised the reefs above the water's surface, exposing the wreck that was lying on them.

This story reminded me of a great book I read--listened to on audiobook, actually--called Shadow Divers. Published in 2004, "Shadow Divers," by Robert Kurson, is the true story of the discovery and identification of a German U-boat that sank off the coast of New Jersey during World War II. The submarine was discovered in 1999 by deep-sea divers. Although they quickly recognized it as a U-boat, it took years of additional diving and research before the U-boat's identity, and that of its crew, could be conclusively authenticated.

Looking for more like "Shadow Divers," I browsed the catalog for books about North Atlantic shipwrecks. It turns out that we have a related book, about two men who perished diving to the U-boat:

The last dive : a father and son's fatal descent into the ocean's depths, by Bernie Chowdhury.

There are a few others that look interesting:

Miracles on the water : the heroic survivors of a World War II U-boat attack, by Tom Nagorski. A new arrival.
Simple courage : a true story of peril on the sea, by Frank Delaney.
Pride of the sea : courage, disaster, and a fight for survival, by Tom Waldron. (This one's in large print.)

On the fictional side, I enjoyed Clive Cussler's "Raise the Titanic!," which was written before Robert Ballard's discovery of the Titanic. Cussler imagined the discovery and retrieval of an intact Titanic. A diver himself, Cussler has written many other books that involve shipwrecks and nautical adventure. (And for those who want them, of course, we also have many nonfiction books about the Titanic.)