Outdoors & Nature Books - Page 14

The Annapolis Book of Seamanship: Third Edition, Completely Revised, Expanded and Updated

John Rousmaniere, Mark Smith

Amazon Price: $29.70 List Price: $45.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $21.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Transportation -> Ships -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Transportation -> Ships -> General AAS
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Engineering -> Special Topics -> Military Engineering

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

First launched in 1983, Annapolis remains the sailor's bible, a comprehensive chapter and verse guide to all aspects of seamanship from the simplest ABC's to the most advanced skills and latest electronics. And while much of the original edition has been left in dry dock to make way for the many changes on the water since 1983--like multihull vessels, satellite tracking, and the reality that while all ships remain "she," there is no longer the assumption that it's a "he" at the helm--Rousmaniere still emphasizes what he's stressed from the first tack: the importance of mastering sailing's fundamentals. This means knowing every inch of your boat and how to handle her, understanding the importance of safety on the seas and preparing for all emergencies, reading the weather, learning to navigate, knowing essential boat maintenance, and being aware of the traditions every sailor steps into whenever he or she sticks feet in a pair of topsiders. Clearly organized and presented, cleanly and smoothly written (given how much technical information he presents, Rousmaniere's prose is blessedly jargon-free), and thoroughly illustrated with photos and drawings, Annapolis is as essential as a good wind, perhaps the one volume no sailor should leave port without. --Jeff Silverman

Foxfire 3 (Foxfire)

Inc. Foxfire Fund

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Anchor Amazon Marketplace: 114 new & used starting at $6.35

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> General
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Crafts & Hobbies -> General
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Crafts & Hobbies -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good place to get ideas but don't expect a solid how-to 3 out of 5 stars.
37 of 46 people found this review helpful.

All of the foxfire books have a similar format: interviews with elders who practice a specific handicraft. And in the telling you can learn a lot of good details, but these books are not meant to teach you how to do any of these crafts, they are simply recording the knowledge of these elders. There are much better how-to's out there for skills. For a general book, get "The Encyclopedia of Country Living", for a book on hide-tanning get "Deerskins into Buckskins", both available from amazon.com

WE OWE THESE PEOPLE A LOT 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I own, read and use almost all of the Foxfire books. Actually, we owe both the Foxfire people and we certainly owe the characters of a gone generation. This work, Volume III, is like the others. A wonderful history of how it was. In this day and age of having most needs meet and something for everyone on the Wal-mart shelf, we tend to forget just what it was like in our not too distant past. These books, the Foxfire books, brings to light skills, attitudes and a way of life that is all but forgotten. Do be warned though, as one reviewer has pointed out, these are not step by step "how to do it" books. But This is sort a good thing as the how to books out there are sort of a dime a dozen any more. When a people lose their history, they lose part of their soul. As the title of this work states, this addresses many of the old forgotten skills and there is so much more. The editors have done a wonderful job. They have made a very honest effort to replicate the dialect of those places and times and I feel that this is a big part of the charm of these books. I am old enough to have known many of the kinds of folks featured in these books, being only one generation past them, and have a great appreciation for what and how they did all the little things we take so for granted now. I might also suggest that you actually try some of the things mentioned in these volumes. It will give you even more of an appreciation for what they did, and hey, who knows, the skill you develope just might come in handy one of these days! Recommend this and the other Foxfire books highly.

Editorial Review:

Interviews and essays describe the way of life and crafts of pioneer America still surviving in the Appalachian region.

Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces

Robert Clark

Amazon Price: $17.16 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Doubleday Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $11.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> History & Criticism -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> History & Criticism -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Italy -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This dramatic, beautifully written account of the flood that ravaged Florence, Italy, in 1966 weaves heartbreaking tales of the disaster and stories of the heroic global efforts to save the city’s treasures against the historic background of Florence’s glorious art.

On November 4, 1966, Florence, one of the world’s most historic cities and the repository of perhaps its greatest art, was struck by a monumental calamity. A low-pressure system had been stalled over Italy for six weeks and on the previous day it had begun to rain again. Nineteen inches fell in twenty-four hours, more than half of the annual total. By two o’clock in the morning twenty-thousand cubic feet of water per second was moving towards Florence. Soon manhole covers in Santa Croce were exploding into the air as jets of water began shooting out of the now overwhelmed sewer system. Cellars, vaults, and strong-rooms were filling with water. Night watchmen on the Ponte Vecchio alerted the bridge’s jewelers and goldsmiths to come quickly to rescue their wares. By then the water was moving at forty miles per hour at a height of twenty-four feet. At 7:26 a.m. all of Florence’s electric civic clocks came to a stop. The Piazza Santa Croce was under twenty-two feet of water. Beneath the surface, twelve feet of mud, sewage, debris, and oil sludge were starting to ooze and settle into the cellars and crypts and room after room above them. Six-hundred-thousand tons of it would smother, clot, and encrust the city. 
Dark Water brings the flood and its aftermath to life through the voices of witnesses past and present. Two young American artists wade heedlessly through the inundated city carrying their baby in order to witness its devastated beauty: the Ponte Vecchio buried in debris and Ghiberti’s panels from the doors of the Florence Baptistery, lying heaped in yard-deep mud; the swamped Uffizi Gallery; and, in the city libraries, one billion pages of Renaissance and antique books, soaked in mire. A Life magazine photographer, stowing away on an army helicopter, arrives to capture a drama that, he felt, “could only be told by Dante” amid the flooded tombs of Machiavelli and Michelangelo in Giotto and Vasari’s Santa Croce. A British student, one of thousands of “mud angels” who rushed to Florence to save its art, spends a month scraping mud and mold from Cimabue’s magnificent and neglected Crocifisso as intrigues and infighting among international art experts and connoisseurs swirl around him. And during the fortieth anniversary commemorations of 2006 the author asks himself why art matters so very much to us, and how beauty seems to somehow save the world even in the face of overwhelming disaster.

Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places

Steve Brill

Amazon Price: $14.93 List Price: $21.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 40 new & used starting at $10.71

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> Reference
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> General
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places shows readers how to find and prepare more than five hundred different plants for nutrition and better health, including such common plants as mullein (a tea made from the leaves and flowers suppresses a cough), stinging nettle (steam the leaves and you have a tasty dish rich in iron), cattail (cooked stalks taste similar to corn and are rich in protein), and wild apricots (an infusion made with the leaves is good for stomach aches and disgestive disorders).

More than 260 detailed line drawings help readers identify a wide range of plants -- many of which are suited for cooking by following the more than thirty recipes included in this book. There are literally hundreds of plants readily available underfoot waiting to be harvested and used either as food or as a potential therapeutic. This book is both a field guide to nature's bounty and a source of intriguing information about the plants that surround us.

A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs: Of Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides (R))

James A. Duke, Steven Foster

Amazon Price: $12.92 List Price: $19.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Houghton Mifflin Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $9.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Herbal Remedies
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With more than 300 photos, this new edition shows how to identify more than 500 healing plants. Descriptive text includes information on where the plants are found, as well as their known medicinal uses. An index to medical topics, symbols next to plant descriptions, and organization of plants by colors all make this an essential guide to understanding the traditional medicinal uses of the plants around us. At a time when interest in herbs and natural medicine has never been higher, the second edition of this essential guide shows how to identify more than five hundred kinds of healing plants. More than three hundred new color photos illustrate their flowers, leaves, and fruits. The updated descriptive text includes information on where the plants are found as well as their known medicinal uses. An index to medical topics is helpful for quickly locating information on specific ailments, from asthma and headaches to colds and stomachaches. Symbols next to plant descriptions give readers a quick visual alert to plants that are poisonous or may cause allergic reactions. Organized by plant color for fast identification, this guide is an indispensable tool for understanding the traditional medicinal uses of the plants and herbs around us.

Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth

Jim Merkel

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: New Society Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $10.55

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Happiness

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education. How do you know how much to take? How much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind you—not just the six billion people, but the wildlife, and the as-yet-unborn?

In the face of looming ecological disaster, many people feel the need to change their own lifestyles as a tangible way of transforming our unsustainable culture. Radical Simplicity is the first book that guides the reader to a personal sustainability goal, then offers a process to monitor progress to a lifestyle that is equitable amongst all people, species, and generations. It employs three tools to help readers begin their customized journey to simplicity:

>It builds on steps from Your Money or Your Life so readers can design their own personal economics to save money, get free of debt, and align their work with their values.
It uses refined tools from Our Ecological Footprint so readers can measure how much nature is needed to supply all they consume and absorb their waste.
Combining lyrical narrative, compassionate advocacy, and absorbing science, Radical Simplicity is a practical, personal answer to twenty-first century challenges that will appeal as much to Cultural Creatives and students as to spiritual seekers, policy makers, and sustainability professionals.

Jim Merkel quit his job as a military engineer following the Exxon Valdez disaster and has since worked to develop tools for personal and societal sustainability. He founded the Global Living Project to further this work and conducts workshops around North America on this topic.

Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance (2nd Edition)

Lennard Zinn

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Velo Press - Model: VP-ZR2 Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $13.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Features:

• Paperback
• More than 300 illustrations

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Automotive -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Automotive -> General AAS
Subjects -> Sports -> Individual Sports -> Cycling -> Bike Repair

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Just ok. 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Not enough detailed information. Needs more pictures, more examples. Otherwise the info is good and all aspects of what you need to know are covered. Just be prepared to be frustrated when you can't figure things out by the limited picture drawings. This book needs a serious overhaul.

Good Buy 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book offers a great deal of information to someone like me who is just now getting in to cycling and is not familiar with the terms and would just like to get a better sense of their bike. It lays out a very helpful maintenance guide that tells you the general amount of time needed between cleanings and replacements.

Generally Comprehensive & Detailed 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book and Down's (more popular) book at the same time. Both books have good illustrations, but this book is by far the more detailed and helpful. Down's book is VERY basic and leaves out detail needed to really tune anything to any extent.

Having said that, this book does a decent job of showing how to tune a number of bike features, as well as doing routine maintanence/repairs. However, if you are a gear-head, you probably won't be happy with less than Barnett's painfully exhaustive 4 volume set--which is likely overly detailed for anyone short of a professional shop-set.

Though a complete novice can use this book, it seems geared more to people who have at least a common sense knowledge of bikes & tools when they are looking at them right in front of them. [Down's book spends time describing things that should be obvious at a gance, while leaving out detail you need to fix something.]

Definitely a recommended buy from me....very useful.

Editorial Review:

A senior technical writer for VeloNews and Inside Triathlon, Lennard Zinn shares his experience and insight. Each chapter is devoted to a specific part of the bicycle, maintenance and emergency on-the-road repairs.

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

Nicholas Drayson

Amazon Price: $14.96 List Price: $22.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Houghton Mifflin Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $9.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Birdwatching -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A beguiling novel that does for contemporary Kenya and its 1,000 species of birds what Alexander McCall Smith's Ladies Detective series does for Botswana

For the past three years, the widower Mr. Malik has been secretly in love with Rose Mbikwa, a woman who leads the weekly bird walks sponsored by the East African Ornithological Society. Reserved and honorable, Malik wouldn't be noticed by a bystander in a Nairobi street—except perhaps to comment on his carefully sculpted combover. But beneath that unprepossessing exterior lies a warm heart and a secret passion.

But just as Malik is getting up the nerve to invite Rose to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball (the premier social occasion of the Kenyan calendar), who should pop up but his nemesis from his school days. The jokester Harry Khan, good-looking in a flashy way and quick of foot, has also become enraptured with the object of Malik's affection.

So begins the competition cooked up by fellow members of the Asadi club: whoever can identify the most species of birds in one week's time gets the privilege of asking Ms. Mbikwa to the ball.

Set against the lush Kenyan landscape rich with wildlife and political intrigue, this irresistible novel has been sold in eight countries and is winning fans worldwide.

The Seven Seas 2009: The Sailor's Calendar

Amazon Price: $12.14 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Albatross Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $10.80

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Transportation -> Ships -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Transportation -> Ships -> General AAS
Subjects -> Sports -> Water Sports -> Sailing -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great Sailing Pictures 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

These calendars have beautiful pictures of sailboats in exotic locations and on the page where the calendar grid is there is a nautical chart visible behind the grid. Apparently "sailing people" are very fond of charts and since my husband grew up on a sailboat he just loves these calendars both for the sailboat pictures and for the charts.

I have purchased one of these calendars every year for my husband for man years now. When the 2009 calendar arrived, however, he looked at it and told me that I don't need to buy them any more. Apparently he noticed that several of the pictures are ones that have already appeared in previous years' calendars. Since he mainly likes this particular brand because of the pictures, there is no point in continuing to buy it if they're going to repeat the pictures.

I definitely give this 5 stars because of the charts and the pictures. Unless you already have many previous years of these calendars stored away I highly recommend it for anybody who likes sailing.

Editorial Review:

The Seven Seas—North America's #1-selling sailing calendar, now in its twenty-fourth year—takes you on twelve unforgettable voyages.

Bask in serene waters from the Marquesas to Tahiti and feel the glow of a sunset after a glorious day at sea. Experience the morning mist of Celtic's Killary Harbour, gaze at majestic cliffs sailing in the Tasmanian Sea, and feel the invigorating power of the ocean. This calendar is of the highest-quality printing—ideal for framing.

Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer

Jamie Smith

Amazon Price: $14.93 List Price: $21.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: VeloPress Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $13.04

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Sports -> Individual Sports -> Cycling -> General
Subjects -> Sports -> Individual Sports -> Cycling -> General AAS
Subjects -> Sports -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Not what I was expecting... 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I have been an avid cycling enthusiast for some time. Most of the people I know don't understand why I like it so much or why I spend so much money on cycling. I was hoping this book would focus mostly on that; in the beginning, it did explain the rationale (or lack of) behind a cyclist's behavior, but then it became too technical and focused too much on racing for my tastes. I feel that most of the cyclists I know are recreational riders instead of racers; I didn't realize that there were that many racers around. All of that being said, I still enjoyed the book, but I think it was because I was able to understand it. Even if your cyclist is not a racer, this book will help you understand his/her love of cycling.

Editorial Review:

In the world of cycling, there are enthusiasts and then there are "roadies" — the cyclist whose passion for bike racing cannot be tamed. A confirmed roadie will go to any length to better his record — from shaving his legs to dropping a fortune on a bike — and the reactions to a roadie's determination can vary from disbelief to outright scorn. Jamie Smith is a confirmed roadie, and in this unique book, he sets out to explain the often-misunderstood world of roadies, delving into the groups many neuroses and lightheartedly illuminating just what it is that keeps these extreme cyclists coming back for more. Accompanied by amusing illustrations from a nationally syndicated cartoonist, this look into a bike racing subculture is sure to convert even the most hardened skeptics.