Free Reading List

24 Books for the Caribbean

Curated for the Royal Clipper Windward Islands Literary Retreat · March 2027

Royal Clipper under full sail in the Caribbean Royal Clipper mahogany library lounge

The Trip

  • Dates: March 2027 · 7 nights
  • Route: Barbados → St. Lucia → Dominica → Antigua → St. Kitts → Martinique
  • Ship: Royal Clipper — the world's largest full-rigged sailing ship. 5 masts, 42 sails, 227 guests.
  • From: Inquire for rates

Booking open · See the full itinerary

I don't give you one reading list. I give you four.

Each track offers a different lens for the same voyage — from the history buried in every port to the Nobel Prize–winning poetry of St. Lucia.

The Wake

Slavery, empire, and the real Caribbean. Washington Black. Sugar in the Blood. Texaco.

The Sargasso

Caribbean Gothic, love stories at sea, the kind of books you read on a ship deck at sunset. Wide Sargasso Sea. The Mermaid of Black Conch.

Trade Winds

Sailing memoirs, island-hopping, and Jamaica Kincaid dismantling your tourist fantasy. The Traveller's Tree. A Small Place.

The Deep

Nobel winners, postcolonial literature, and the intellectually ambitious list. Omeros. Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.

Enter your name and email and we'll send you the complete reading list — all 24 books with cover images, descriptions, and which port each book connects to.