(1978) This was the bestselling book of 1978, not so much a novel as a series of interlinked stories set on the Chesapeake Bay, from the 15th to the 20th centuries. The nature writing is pretty good, but the characters are mostly unpleasant, with ideas about race that are doubtless historically accurate but also not something I want to spend 850 pages with. Which is a me thing, really: Michener accomplishes what he sets out to do.