On Thursday we got a call from Luke’s (5) daycare that they would be closed on Friday because electricity had to be turned off in that part of town for a few hours. A little while later my mother called to say that she couldn’t babysit Joy (3) like she does every Friday because she and my father had to attend a funeral. My wife Jenny has been extremely busy with work over the past few weeks so that left me to entertain our little people. Uh, oh! Thank god for friends! More on that in a bit.
Thursday night Luke and I took my podcasting partner, gCaptain CEO/blogger and friend Captain John Konrad with us to a book signing at The Book Stall in Marion. Another friend, Randy Peffer, is an English professor at Phillips Academy Andover and prolific author. His newest book is titled Old School Bones; fortunately for Randy, but unfortunately for us, the book signing was so successful that he ran out of books by the time we arrived so we had to back order it. 
Randy also has several great maritime themed works including Watermen, a classic, and Logs of the Dead Pirates Society: A Schooner Adventure Around Buzzards Bay, one of my all time favorites. As its name suggests, Logs chronicles a sail training adventure with Andover students around Buzzards Bay on Randy’s Nova Scotia schooner Sarah Abbott. He also has a US Civil War maritime series coming out later this year. Randy writes!
At the book signing Randy asked if we wanted to go sailing Friday. Well, Captain Konrad unfortunately had to work but the little people and me were free so we took him up on the offer. Saved by sailing!
What an great day we had on Buzzards Bay. Here are a couple of pictures and a short video (the sound is terrible but you get the idea what kind day it was on the bay.)
Continuing on the topics of sailing and books, in today’s (June 21, 2008 ) Weekend Wall Street Journal Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to solo circumnavigate the globe nonstop lists his 5 favorite sailing books:
- The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby (Houghton Mifflin, 1956)
- Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana. 1840
- The Acts of the Apostles circa A.D. 60
- Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, 1899
- Last Man Across the Atlantic by Paul Heiney (Mainstream, 2006)
Those are all great books for your maritime library. Of course, make sure you also have Watermen and Logs of the Dead Pirate Society too!
Finally, if you need more to read this summer, Bookmarks Magazine had a great article in August 2006 entitled 101 Crackerjack Sea Books by Dean King. This list should keep you busy for a while!
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Sea-Fever blog 
Thanks Will. You will not be disappointed by any of Randy’s books. Love what you do at Tugster.
Molly, thanks for visiting and commenting. Sounds like I need to get a copy of Chasing Sunsets. We just finished reading Arthur Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea and bought Swallows and Amazons.
I checked out your website for the Lodge in the Valley of the Moon and we are packing our bags!
Thanks again for visiting and commenting!
thanks for the info. i’ll have to add some of randy’s books to my shelf.
Saved by sailing indeed! What a lovely way to spend the day with “the little people”. I was drawn to your blog by the heading of this particular post (Sailing and Books). I am always looking for books to give my husband. I suppose I am hoping that it will fulfill his wanderlust for sailing again, or most possibly to gain a personal comfort in the idea of taking the family cruising someday soon! Which takes me back to children and sailing… and books.
I purchased Lawrence Pane’s book Chasing Sunsetsfor my husband for Father’s Day this year. It chronicles the 6 1/2 years of circumnavigation with his son and wife. Max has been reading tidbits of the story out loud to our 11 and 9 year old daughters. They have been questioning him non-stop to retell accounts of his own single handed adventures on his 32′ Beneteau Roxy. That slippery slope of conversation always ends with “and why did we sell Roxy”? (mind you, they are all looking at me when asking that question. sigh)
Thank you for your list of books. I will keep them handy for the next gift giving event. I also want to thank you for the information about Patagonia’s Voice Your Choice. As a leader of a Girl Scout troop, I am working hard to connect my girls to local conservation and environmental education groups. This is one more contact to pursue! I am lucky to be located in the Seattle area, which seems to have a plethora of resources.
nameste