The oceans cover an immense expanse--ranging over three-fifths of the world. Beyond the boundless nature of these bodies of water that surround the globe, the seas have inspired some of the greatest tales and legends in literary history. Whether you like to imagine mermaids, magical lands beneath the waves, or you simply enjoy watching the waves and walking on the beach, the sea offers something for everyone. Read lines about the sea. Dream of the sea...

• The Odyssey - Homer
• Sea Dreams - Lord Alfred Tennyson
• The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Anderson
• As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life - Walt Whitman
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• The Welsh Fairy Book - W. Jenkyn Thomas
• By the Sea - Christina Georgina Rossetti
• The City in the Sea - Edgar Allan Poe
• Dover Beach - Matthew Arnold
• The People of the Sea
• Sea Literature

"Why does the sea moan evermore?" Read about sea literature.

Some of my earliest memories of my mother are of her reading. It seemed a normal part of existence: to ravenously devour a book, to sleep with a book beside the bed (or in one's hands), to have a book forever at hand. But, the role of mothers in literature runs far deeper than my initial introductions to reading...

How have mothers influence the lives of writers? How have women writers balanced the demands of motherhood with the need to write? And, what have authors written about their mothers?

Walt Whitman wrote:

"I see the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother,
The sleeping mother and babe--hush'd, I study them long and long."

What are your early memories of reading? Do you have a favorite passage that expresses motherhood in literature? Have you been by a writing and/or reading mother?