Besides being a skillful woodworker and accomplished model shipbuilder, Ken is also our in-house expert on all things nautical. Here is a baker's dozen of noteworthy titles now available in our local interest and nautical history sections.

The Last of the Wind Ships by Alan Villiers W.W. Norton $55.00 hardcover Order now		Like a clipper at sea under full sail, this book is both beautiful and larger than life. A mariner of the twentieth century with his heart in the nineteenth, Villiers photographed the giant "Cape Horners" he worked on in the 1920s and 30s. The results are shots of ordinary life aboard these nearly extinct vessels that are fascinating and, as reproduced here, seemingly big enough to climb into. The accompanying text from Villiers' written accounts of the voyages, and an introductory biography of him by Basil Greenhill, round out the volume, making it a great gift for any nautical buff.

Ships by Philip Wilkinson Larousse Kingfisher Chambers $16.95 hardcover Order now		Why didn't they have this book when I was a kid? Big and lavishly illustrated, this reference book takes young readers through the history of sea travel, from Greek galleys to Princess cruise liners, with all the requisite stops between. Detailed paintings and photographs depict the triumphs and tragedies to which the ocean has served witness over the centuries.

Down to the Sea: The Fishing Schooners of Gloucester by Joseph E. Garland David R. Godine $20.00 paperback Order now		In a lost waterfront world of wood and canvas, sleek, elegant vessels slid down the ways at Gloucester, Massachusetts in pursuit of record fish catches that would make their port world famous. Black & white photographs, drawings, and essays tell the story of the fishing schooners of Gloucester, their designers and crew in a beautiful document that is a must have for anyone with a fascination for the coastal fisheries of New England.

Flying Cloud: The True Story of America's Most Famous Clipper Ship and the Woman Who Guided Her by David W. Shaw William Morrow & Co. $26.00 hardcover Order now		Like gigantic racing yachts, the great wooden clipper ships of the nineteenth century once competed on the open sea for world speed records that would become points of national pride. In the days before the Panama Canal, one American clipper would set a record from New York to San Francisco -around Cape Horn- that would remain unbroken well into the twentieth century. She was the Flying Cloud, and her navigator, Eleanor Creesy, guided her through some of the most capricious seas on Earth. Sort of a cross between The Hungry Ocean and In the Heart of the Sea, this book reads much like a novel, telling the story of Eleanor Creesy and the legendary Flying Cloud with a minimum of jargon and a maximum of detail.

The Great Gulf: Fishermen, Scientists, and the Struggle to Revive the World's Greatest Fishery by David Dobbs Island Press $24.95 hardcover Order now		The modern New England fishing industry, so vividly brought to life for many by The Perfect Storm and The Hungry Ocean, is the setting for this memoir. Tighter regulations imposed on fisherman today are perhaps the only hope for an underwater environment seriously depleted by years of over-fishing, but they threaten to end a way of life that has been a part of New England since the earliest European colonists. The "Great Gulf" of the title is really the one that exists between fishermen and marine scientists, and Dobbs explores this complex problem with compassion for both sides.

Ghosts of the Titanic by Charles Pellegrino William Morrow & Co. $26.00 hardcover Order now		In life she was one of the largest moving objects ever built by human beings. Today, she is a gigantic corpse, slowly disintegrating on the floor of the North Atlantic, two and a half miles away from the sunlit world of her builders. She is the RMS Titanic, and her tragic story continues to fascinate the world nearly ninety years after her sinking. In Ghosts of the Titanic, Pellegrino explores the human side of the story, relating in tense prose some of the experiences of survivors during the ship's final moments. Perhaps even more fascinating, in a morbid way, is the author's post-mortem of the once mighty vessel, a detailed analysis of the wreck's present decay, as well as the latest theories about its wrenching destruction in 1912.

Prince Henry 'the Navigator' a Life by Peter Russell Yale University Press $35.00 hardcover Order now		This large, authoritative volume on the most famous figure in Portuguese history deals less with the inner life of the man himself, and more with the political and religious climate of his era. Russell's lively analysis of the Prince's actions and motivations form a picture of an epic drama of science and religion, set against the backdrop of medieval Europe.

The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw Hyperion $14.00 paperback Order now		This narrative of a typical voyage of the swordfishing boat, the Hannah Boden, must surely be among the best in its genre. Linda Greenlaw's plain-spoken yet witty style makes the reader's education in the techniques and technology of modern fishing entertaining, eye-opening, and not the least bit dull. I'm sure just about anyone could find some element to relate to in this book, regardless of interests or life experiences.

Twice Round the Loggerhead by Lance R. Lee, Bruce Halabisky Leete's Island Books $35.00 hardcover Order now		Azorean whaleboats, longer, sleeker descendants of the craft once lowered by Yankee whaleships, were and are as colorful as the men who built and hunted with them. The lush, rocky landscape of the Azores is the setting for this beautifully detailed travelogue through the history of whaling in these waters. The culture of the islands and the fading memories of the last Azorean boat-builders are ingredients in the construction of a new boat, the Bela Vista, whose construction is documented in a series of watercolors by Yvon Le Corre. Any collection on New Bedford and whaling is incomplete without this book.

The Custom of the Sea by Neil Hanson John Wiley & Sons $24.95 hardcover (Order NOW!) Order now		The gruesome tale fascinated England's Queen Victoria. The horrible fate of the yacht Mignonette, wrecked by a giant wave in 1884, is a story with all the ingredients for high seas drama, including cannibalism. Like the crew of the whaler Essex in 1820, the survivors of the Mignonette wound up killing and eating a young sailor to sustain themselves, a feared scenario long accepted with silence as the "custom of the sea." This time, however, the men were tried for murder after their rescue. Hanson relates the events of the wreck and its aftermath with chilling detail, making this book a grim companion to Nathaniel Philbrick's reconstruction of the Essex sinking, In the Heart of the Sea.

In Search of Moby Dick by Tim Severin Basic Books $24.00 hardcover Order now		If Captain Ahab had to follow the white whale "around perdition's flames," it was only because he didn't have this book with him. Was the godlike cetacean of Melville's epic novel based on a real animal? That is the question before author Tim Severin as he begins retracing the journeys of both Herman Melville and the fictional Pequod. The result is in part an ethnographic study of the Pacific Islands that real whalers knew quite well. Mostly, it is the log of a mariner searching, not for vengeance, but insight.

Lobscouse & Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels (Patrick O'Brian) by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman & Lisa Grossman Thomas WW. Norton $16.95 paperback Order now		Every great story comes with a cookbook. So it is with the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. One imagines that even readers familiar with the sea and the workings of a square rigger were baffled by O'Brian's lovingly detailed descriptions of meals on board late eighteenth/early nineteenth century naval vessels. The authors of this volume have explored the world of gastronomic history and brought back this delightful (and, like an O'Brian novel, often hilarious) reference work. Although the text includes the historic method of preparation, the recipes are presented for use with twentieth century materials, making some of them quite tempting to try, despite their deliriously high fat content. In any event, these dishes shed an amusing light on Jack Aubrey's oft-mentioned corpulence.

The Ultimate Book of Lighthouses by Samuel Willard Compton & Michael J. Rhein Thunder Bay Press $24.98 hardcover Order now		They have become symbols of hope, safety, and enlightenment, these stoic structures built on the harsh borders between land and sea. The lighthouses of North America, their history, legend and designs, are explored in this beautiful book. Ample color photographs offer excellent views of the structures and their diverse styles, from plain and utilitarian to Victorian gothic. This is a real treat for lighthouse buffs.