|
Buy on line using our secure pages, by clicking on the buttons below each reviewIf you have any questions or want a quote for delivery email us. |
DARWIN'S ARMADA.By Iain McCalman. Paperback. 420 pages, 130mm x 200mm, colour plates.
Darwin was just one part of a radical challenge to established ways of thinking about the origin of humans. Three other ambitious young naturalists – Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace – undertook long hazardous sea journeys of their own, discovering and documenting new specimens. The common hardships they endured forged lifelong friendships, and the group became the vanguard of the social and intellectual battle to convince the world of Darwin’s theory.
In Darwin’s Armada, the Darwinian revolution is portrayed for the first time as a collective enterprise, forged in Australasia by four remarkable men who did together what one alone could not: changed the world.
NZ$30.00 + Delivery
1788 - THE BRUTAL TRUTH OF THE FIRST FLEET.By David Hill. Paperback, 130mm X 200mm, 392 pages, monochrome paintings.
Never before or since has there been an experiment quite as bold as this. Eleven of the tiniest ships sailed for eight months over the roughest of seas, carrying fifteen hundred people, food for two years and all the equipment needed to build a colony of convicts in a land completely beyond their experience and imagination.
In Portsmouth the fleet's preparation was characterised by disease, promiscuity and death. The journey itself was one of unbearable hardship, but also of extraordinary resilience, with the majority of settlers and exiles making it alive to the new colony at Sydney Cove. There, however, they faced their biggest challenges of all: conflict, starvation and despair.
Combining the skill of a vigilant journalist with the magic of a master novelist, David Hill brings the sights, sounds, sufferings and triumphs of the First Fleeters back to life. Journals, letters, reports and pleas to England are all interwoven here with the author's own insight and empathy to convey the innermost horrors and joys of the very first European Australians. The result is a narrative history that is surprising, compelling and unforgettable.
NZ$30.00 + Delivery
THE LAST FISH TALE.By Mark Kurlansky. Paperback, 142mm X 203mm, 268 pages, black & white photographs and drawings.
Is fishing at sea - an ancient trade and a way of life that has defined coastal towns throughout history - coming to an end?
Are the culture and traditions of coastal Britain and of seagoing nations everywhere now threatened with extinction?
Will most of the major fisheries of the world be exhausted by 2048, as has been claimed?
Has the number of large fish in the ocean decreased by 90 percent over the past 50 years, as has been asserted by a respected scientist?
In his most important book yet, Mark Kurlansky - the celebrated anthor of Cod, Salt and The big oyster - explores the fate of our oceans and the decline of our most ancient coastal enterprise. The Last Fish Tale sends up a timely distress flare but one which briliantly illuminates a colourful, exuberant and poignant landscape, from Newlyn in Cornwall to Gloucester in Massachusetts - a fishing village first settled by Englishmen in the early 1600s. The result is a cultural, economic, environmental and culinary bouillabaisse - the most compelling fish tale of our time.
NZ$38.00 + Delivery
TOTAL LOSS.By Paul Gelder. Paperback, 128mm X 198mm, 274 pages.
Total Loss is an enthralling collection of dramatic stories of yachts lost at sea. From the tragic sinking of the yacht Ouzo, run down or swamped by a P&O ferry in the English Channel, to an eyewitness account of the wreck of Hooligan V, here are gripping tales of collisions with UFOs (Unidentified Floating Objects), fire, explosion, crew exhaustion, severe weather, navigational blunders, capsize and dismastings that will have you on the edge of your seat.
Total Loss holds the reader in morbid fascination whilst offering insights into strategies which could save the lives of skippers and crew. It is a compelling, thought-provoking read.
Paul Gelder is the editor of yachting Monthly and has sailed a wide variety of yachts from classics such as Gypsy Moth IV to ocean racers and family cruising yachts.
NZ$30.00 + Delivery
BARROW'S BOYS, A Stiring Story of Daring, Fortitude and Outright Lunacy.By Fergus Fleming. Pbk, 130mm X 195mm, 489 pages, monochrome photographs and drawings.
The atlas of 1816 was littered with blanks. What was the North Pole? Was there a north-west Passage? Did Antarctica exist?
In his quest to find the answers to these questions John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, launched the most ambitious programme of exploration the world had ever seen.
This book brings these expeditions together in one volume, showing the strategic intent as well as the adventures themselves. A major interest in this book is that, in the modern idium for accounts of exploration, each tale includes a great deal of anecdotal narrative concerning the personalities involved. This brings the stories alive in a remarkable way.
NZ$35.00 + Delivery
EARTHRACE - FIRST TIME AROUND.By Scott Fratcher. Pbk, 195mm x 272mm, 248 pages, More than 350 black & white photographs.
In march 2007 the New Zealand based Earthrace set off to break the round the world speedboat speedboat record. 85 days later the Earthrace attempt was abandoned in Spain with multiple 2-meter cracks in her main hull.
In her wake were three major storms, an engine rebuild, 6 propeller changes, bankruptcy, and ultimately death on the high seas.
Enclosed is a chronicle by master storyteller Scott Fratcher. A humorous tale of pain, suffering, loss, misery, fortitude and the ability of the crew to gruel along, leg after horrendous leg. Scott's colourful writing style takes you to the scene of the action. Thousands read along during the race and laughed at "Did he say cow?" and were enraged by "just another tourist". Come and join the Earthrace team for a first hand account of the world record attempt. Put yourself in the drivers seat. Enjoy an up close view of the pit stops and experience first hand the race from the comfort of your easy chair.
NZ$40.00 + Delivery
LEFT FOR DEAD. By Nick Ward with Sinead O'Brien. Pbk, 127mm x 197mm, 279 pages, black & white and colour photogtaphs.
Sailing in the Fastnet Race on the yacht Grimalkin had been a dream come true for Nick, but the dream turned to a nightmare when, in the midst of colossal waves and unremitting winds, Grimalkin was capsized again and again. The skipper was lost overboard, and after hours of exhausting struggle three of the crew abandoned the boat for the life raft. Nick and his fellow crewmemeber Gerry, both injured and unconscious, were left on the beleaguered yacht, presumed dead.
In the middle of the deadliest storm in the history of modern sailing, Nick Ward somehow managed to live to tell his tale. The world famous Fastnet Race of 1979 began in near perfect weather, but within 48 hours was struck by a horrific storm. By the time it has passed, it had mercilessly taken the lives of 15 sailors.
This is Nick Ward's moving and inspirational account of his survival - against all odds - a story that has remained untold for 27 years, until now.
NZ$25.00 + Delivery
THIS THING OF DARKNESS. ISBN 0-7553-0281-8.By Harry Thompson. Pbk, 130mm x 196mm, 744 pages.
1828. Brilliant young naval officer Robert Fitzroy is given the captaincy of HMS Beagle, surveying the wilds of Tierra del Fuego, aged just twenty-three. He takes a passenger: a young trainee cleric and amateur geologist named Charles Darwin. This is the story of a deep friendship between two men, and the twin obsessions that tore it apart, leading one to triumph and the other to disaster...
"This brilliant recreation of their journey is in turns terrifying, hilarious and uplifting. This was a fundamentally important episode in our history and it emerges with extraordinary clarity through the twists and rising tensions of a great thriller".
NZ$28.00 + delivery.
RASCAL OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC.By Athol Rusden. Pbk, 152mm x 230mm, 408 pages, monochrome photographs.
This is not a story about fame or glory or notable achievements or recognition. Such attributes, worthy as they might be, are superfluous to the real essence of life. It is about the fellow traveller that dwells within each of us. The essence and spirit of adventure that we can all relate to. In taking his "wish list" seriously, Athol created the greatest reward of all - golden memories free of remorse and regret - which he now generouly shares with the reader.
NZ$40.00 + delivery.
MOITESSIER: A SAILING LEGEND. By Jean-Michel Barrault. Pbk, 150mm x 225mm, 234 pages.
Introduction by Peter Nichols
If you are a fan of Bernard Moitessier you will enjoy this book. Jean-Michel Barrault was a close and lasting friend and has given us an insight to Moitessier, snippets of work and thoughts that eventually would come out in Moitessier's writing. What a determined man in all his life, to live it as he wanted, no one could push him to produce work that would not be to his own standards. Admired by the sailing world and people in general. His philosophy on life touched all types of people, not just those involved with the sea. A man who perhaps was allways thinking, not how to make more money but how we can live in harmony with our earth.An inspirational read.
NZ$45.00 + delivery.
AFTER YOU, MR LEAR. By Maldwin Drummond. Pbk, 202mm x 260mm, 237 pages.
This book is the story of a journey in search of the Victorian polymath Edward Lear (1812-88). Best known today as a nonsense poet and humorist, Lear was also a talented and celebrated topographical artist who lived for many decades in southern France and Italy. His landscapes of the Mediterranean coast, along with his diaries and many other records of his fascinating life, provide the inspiration for the quest described in these pages.
On the 150th anniversary of Lear's appointment as Queen Victoria's drawing master in 1846, Maldwin and Gilly Drummond set sail in their yacht Gang Warily from near Osborne House, Queen Victoria's home in the Isle of Wight. They crossed the Channel, navigated the rivers and canals of France to the Mediterranean, and sailed down the coast of Italy from Lear's adopted home on Riviera as far south as Naples - and then followed Lear inland into Campania, Basilicata, Sicily and Calabria. Entwined with the story of the author's voyage is a wealth of detail about Lear's own many voyages - on foot, on horseback and sometimes by boat.
Here is a fascinating account of a modern-day cruise, but it is a cruise with a purpose - and also a voyage of discovery. Richly illustrated with Lear's own paintings, drawings and nonsense verse, as well as with photographs and drawings by Maldwin Drummond. Full of new insights into the life and work of a remarkable man, from a remarkable modern perspective.
Was NZ$60.00 + delivery.
Now NZ$20.00 + delivery.
THREE MEN IN A BOAT. By Jerome K. Jerome. Pbk, 128mm x 198mm, 177 pages.
Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a 'T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks - not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency. Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and, with its benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian 'clerking classes', it hilariously captured the spirit of its age.
NZ$24.00 + delivery.
ICE BIRD. By David Lewis. Paperback, 153mm x 234mm, 223 pages, monochrome photos.
David Lewis and his 32-foot yacht, Ice Bird, set sail from Sydney, Australia in 1972 on a search for high adventure. The voyage, full of drama, emotion, and pain, took place in some of the most treacherous waters in the world.
No one had ever sailed a yacht single-handed to Antarctica until David Lewis. Along the way, he would not touch land for more than 14 weeks, facing mountainous seas, constant gales, snowstorms, and freezing temperatures. What started as high adventure became a fight for his life against the odds. Twice his small yacht was capsized and once it was dismasted 3,500 miles from help. his survival was a miracle of fortitude, skill, and some luck.
Ice Bird is one of the great true sea stories of the twentieth century. It is also a tale of human endurance; a testimony of one man's will to overcome almost anything and everything - physical and psychological - to stay alive.
NZ$45.00 + delivery.
SOLE SURVIVORS OF THE SEA. By James E. Wise Jr. Paperback, 150mm x 228mm, 203 pages, monochrome photos.
The incredible stories of twenty-two lone survivors of maritime disasters are presented in this collection of war and peacetime incidents. These dramatic accounts, including those of a British sailor who survived 133 days at sea on an open raft and a German sailor who spent 28 hours in the ocean without a life preserver, are based on interviews with the survivors and their families as well as the official records to ducument their accuracy. Most events took place during World War II, when the navies and merchant fleets of many nations roamed the seas of the world. Each story is one of boundless courage, a tenacious will to survive, and, in many cases, good luck.
NZ$35.00 + delivery.
TREACHERY. By Julian Stockwin, Paperback, 152mm x 232mm, 344 pages.
After offending an Admiral, and suffering terrible personal tragedy, Kydd is sent to guard the Channel Islands. His career in tatters, he then makes a terrible enemy on his own side. When he is brutally betrayed off the Normandy Coast and dismissed his ship, only his old friend Renzi is willing to stick by him.
Then Kydd is given an extraordinary opportunity to salvage his fortunes and return to the sea as captain of a privateer. But privateers are hated by the French and the Royal Navy alike. To keep fighting his country's battle and win back the glory taken from him, he must prowl the Atlantic. A lone wolf of the seas, he and his men are prepared to risk everything to capture the wealthy French traders and heavily armed fighting ships returning to Bonaparte.
NZ$39.00 + delivery.
NARROW DOG TO CARCASSONE. By Terry Darlington, Paperback, 126mm x 197mm, 425 pages.
When they retired Terry and Monica Darlington decided to sail their canal narrowboat across the Channel and down to the Mediterranean, together with their whippet Jim. They took advice from experts, who said they would die, together with their whippet Jim.
On the Phyllis May you dive through six-foot waves in the Channel, are swept down the terrible Rhone, and fight for your life in a storm among the flamingos of the Camargue. You meet the French nobody meets - poets, captains, historians, drunks, bargees, men with guns, scholars, madmen - they all want to know the people on the painted boat and their narrow dog.
You visit the France nobody knows - the backwaters of Flanders, the canals beneath Paris, the heavenly Yonne, the lost Burgundy Canal, the islands of the Saone, and the forbidden ways to the Mediterranean. Aliens, dicks, trolls, vandals, gongoozlers, killer fish and the walking dead all stand between our three innocents and their goal - many-towered Carcassonne.
NZ$28.00 + delivery.
CROSSING THE DITCH. By James Castrission, Paperback, 153mm x 233mm, 311 pages, colour photos.
With more than two thousand kilometers of treacherous seas and dangerously unpredictable weather and currents, it was little wonder no-one had ever successfully crossed the Tasman by kayak. Australian adventurer Andrew McAuley had come close just months earlier - tragically, though, not near enough to save his life. But two young Sydneysiders, James Castrission and Justin Jones, reached the sand at New Plymouth - and a place in history - on 13 January 2008, 62 days after they'd set off from Forster on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. In the process, they had to face dwindling food supplies, a string of technical problems, 14 days trapped in a whirlpool, and two terrifying close encounters with sharks, When they arrived in New Zealand, their friendship stronger than ever, they were sunburnt, bearded, physically and mentally wasted...and most of all, happy to be alive.
NZ$35.00 + delivery.
|
|
