Recreation Books

I bought this book for my husband to read to our [..] son. It's been a year since we've been reading it and now whenever we get the book out, Ben has to run and get his mini "zamboni tractor" and mini hockey stick that we bought him separately. He holds them tight and at each page he points and repeats hockey terminology. Even when we're not reading the book, the terms stick with him. At about 20 months, when I had my arms folded, Ben said to me "Mommy ref". This is thanks to one illustration, the referee has his arms crossed for the interference call. This book is for hockey loving families and fans of all ages.

Hands down, my 18 month olds favorite book. Beautifully illustrated - he looks at the pictures all day. Very durable and highly recommended.

This book is a great way to work with the ABC's when you have a classful of sports-minded boys. Being a primary teacher, I am always looking for different approaches to the alphabet. What a great way to interest boys. I first heard this book from the Philadelphia Flyers/Phantoms Organization. They came to our school for an assembly. Since it was a little over our children's heads, they read this book to them instead. The children were enthralled. I then had to order it to become a permanent part of my personal school library! Not only does it explain the basics of hockey, it brings in some of its history. Very enjoyable!!

This is the very best of Zach's collection of books. I am so glad I found it on your website! It has great pictures and a nice story. He has me read it all the time.
Jan

This board book goes through the entire alphabet, giving each letter it's own page and it's own hockey term or reference. The terms touch on the game of hockey itself and the history of the sport. However, I was a little disappointed in a few of the references.
There are some that are so old, obscure, or nonsensical that parents may not even know what it means or who the person is (e.g. "Y is for two glorious Canadian Years-- the Summit Series and the Salt Lake Games"; huh?) More than a few are just plain unimaginative. And there are plenty of terms I would like to have seen in the book but didn't. There's no Playoffs, no Faceoff, no Net. It refers to the Stanley Cup as "Lord Stanley's Cup" (putting it under the letter L) which is technically correct but isn't how it's really referred to.
Also, the writing is iffy at best. Nothing rhymes or has any sort of rhythm whatsoever, and at times really isn't even grammatically structured very well.
Overall, though, even though it doesn't sound like it, I do like the book. Most of my dislikes are nitpicky. It's a cute book, especially for the hockey fan who wants to get their kid into it the sport as well. It's a fun and educational read.

I highly recommend this book for any aspect of sailing knowledge.

My brother found a first edition of this book in someone's trash, and grabbed it for me, as he knew I was a sailor and thought it might be useful or important. I had learned to sail from "Sailing for Dummies"; this, however, is (or should be) the bible for learning to sail. It is the only sailing book I've read that has described how to fly a spinnaker in a useful manner.

Reading this book will shorten any sailor's learning curve. It covers all aspects of the sport. John Rousmanierehas compiled an amazing reference/textbook that is interesting, informative and invaluable. I highly recommend this book to sailors at all levels of proficiency. Thank you Mr. Rousmaniere for this wonderful resource.

Great book for acquiring basic and intermediate seamanship knowledge. Also very useful as reference for refreshing your knowledge.

THE ANNAPOLIS BOOK OF SEAMANSHIP by John Rousmaniere is the ur-text on sailing used by virtually every sailing school as its primary educational source. Now in its third edition, this eminently readable and well illustrated book is encyclopedic in its scope, crammed full of practical information about sailing vessels, the mechanics of sailing them, and the traditions of sailing. It's a measure of the excellence of THE ANNAPOLIS BOOK OF SEAMANSHIP how familiarly Rousmaniere presents this largely alien topic with its many very specialized terms of art.

Rousmaniere wisely eschews most of the romance of sailing in favor of much more important considerations, such as boat care, boat handling, and especially safety at sea. Sailing may be enjoyable and it may be challenging, but it is also a dangerous avocation by its very nature, and the author never lets "salty talk" befog that issue. This is NOT a quick reference book for those who want to hoist the jolly roger and give no quarter while tied to the dock; this is a bible for serious SAILORS, whether on the local lake, Puget Sound or the South China Sea

While it can't give you the hands-on experience that being before the mast confers, THE ANNAPOLIS BOOK OF SEAMANSHIP will give you the theory and information you need to make the most of that experience.

This book has some pretty good info and is quite comprehensive and well laid out. If you're going to buy 1 book, let it be this one. That's if you ever get around to reading it (it being so comprehensive and all) it's almost easier to go out sailing than trawl through it's many pages! But a worthwhile reference.

I was volunteered to coach soccer for older kids. I highly recommend this book if you find yourself in the same position.

The author's recommendations about coaching and drills made the season a complete success.

I bought this for my daughter who volunteered to be Soccer Coach for the first time. I say she wanted to do it but perhaps was more stong armed into doing it. She found it helpful.

I'm a second year coach with very limited playing experience. I played soccer during elementary school but it was essentially mob ball. This book has helped a great deal. It gives great suggestions for organizing practices and the drills, ahem I mean games, are great. The problem, analysis, solution section is also very helpful.

The book gave very helpful information. I have never coached anything and it gave helpful insight into giving the best experience I can into my son's 4 yr old soccer team.

This book helped organize my practices and provided ideas for drills that kept my U8 Boys team interested the entire season. I received numerous compliments from parents that their kids enjoyed the variety of "games" (i.e. drills) we played in practice. My team went 11-2 this past season and all my players chose to return for the spring season over baseball and other sports. I honestly feel this book improved my coaching style and played a large part in the success of our team.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. As someone looking to get recertified in scuba, I learned a great deal on how NOT to be a statistic.

Diver Down is an easy to read book that appeals to all divers, expert or novice. The book focuses on mistakes made by divers at all experience, levels which in some cases cost them their lives. Reading this book will enable you to learn valuable lessons without making the same mistakes these unfortunate divers made.

I think among divers it is generally known, that the majority of dive accidents could easily have been prevented with better planning or better reactions to occuring problems.
Newer divers, and even some experienced ones, however lack certain experiences, that make dives safe while still being enjoyable.
This book gets you thinking...
I myself came away from reading it with one or two things that I will do differently in the future...
I can recommend this book to any diver.

One of the best diving books I have read. Makes you re-think how you dive.

If you have logged only a handful of dives or enough to fill a log book, this book is a must read. Learning from other peoples' mistakes could quite possibly save your life, and this book is full of practical, experiential knowledge that will most certainly help you to become a better diver; more aware of the risks involved and how to avoid them. It's also a good intro for those who might be interested in learning to dive, although it quite possibly might scare folks away from the sport. Probably won't be letting my wife read it either.

It doesn't matter how many home runs Berry Bond's or anyone of this aera of Baseball, what Hank AAron endured and the racial hatred he went through only proves that he is the BEST. These modern day players could not survive what he and others went through.

I've been a fan from age seven, which is where I was in life when Henry hit number 715. His recounting of his life in baseball is captivating and highly educational.

Mr Aaron is one of the most skilled players in baseball history, and his telling of his story explains that he is much more than that. Mr Aaron is a man of dignity and class, his success through clouds of racist hate provides a shining example of what a man can be under extreme circumstances. Thank you Henry, for your marvelous career in baseball, and for your open, honest sharing of the story.

"I Had A Hammer" is a wonderfully written autobiography about the struggles and the triumphs of one Henry(aka Hank) "The Hammer" Aaron, the career home run record holder, and one of the last of the "Negro League" players to make it big. Aaron describes his upbringing in Mobile well, and shows us the different levels of racism in the Deep South. The book reveals that Aaron fought against segregation in the minor leagues, helping to end "white-only" minor league teams, and shows us Aaron's love affair with the city of Milwaukee and it's long-gone Braves team, and the tense relationship between Aaron and Atlanta, which had the first Deep South major league team. This is recommended for lovers of baseball as well as those who want to know more about civil rights heroes. Atlanta is not cast in a good light in this book, but Aaron harbors little bitterness towards the city or the racism and death threats he had to endure while trying to break Babe Ruth's record.

The athletic proficiency of Hank Aaron is probably the greatest in the history of baseball if not all sports. He is a man of dignity, grace and the stuff legends are made of. This is an endearing and absorbing biography. This biography has captivated the legend of the man for me. It is well written with true fervor and endearment. One of the best.

In this baseball season where my favorite team is floundering in the cellar, and every good story(compelling divisional races) is counterbalanced by the bad (steroids), I have been trying to maintain interest by re-reading some baseball books that I have read over the years. After re-reading "I Had A Hammer", I remember why it remains one of the best biographies/autobiographies that I have ever read.

The sports genre in books is much harder than one would think to keep up interest in. There are very few gems in any sporting subject; mostly it's very mediocre to terribly vapid. Usually a fan becomes disappointed in their sports "heroes" when they read a biography about them, because the writing can be so bad. Fortunately, for a ballplayer as great as Hank Aaron, the work lives up to the character and legend of the man.

Mr. Aaron does a splendid job of taking the reader through his life in Alabama, his discovering the game of baseball, and - of course - his remarkable career. His writing style provides enough description to allow the reader to get a true mental "picture" of what his life was like without getting bogged down in minutiae. Throughout the book, I had the feeling like I really was there watching his career unfold.

Of course, that brings us to the real core - and most important part - of his life story. That is, what Mr. Aaron experienced as he neared and eclipsed Babe Ruth's home run record. Most celebrities or sports figures would relate this in that sensational, "woe-is-me", tabloid-tell-all sort of way. Not Mr. Aaron. He shares many of the truly hateful and despicable letters he received from people across the nation who saw the idea of an African-American breaking the record of a white man as egregious. Mr. Aaron relates how this inundation of hate mail affected him, but he manages to avoid expressing any hate towards the senders of those letters. One obviously gets the sense that Mr. Aaron steeled himself against those attacks with grace and dignity, allowing himself to still play the game the way it was supposed to be played, and to do it with class and personal enjoyment.

It is striking to return to Mr. Aaron's autobiography after the events in baseball over the past decade. We as a fan base in general express outrage over the strike, the steroids (and questions about those players that broke records), outrageous salaries, and the like. It seems to always elicit a response demanding a return to the "innocence" of baseball seasons and players gone by. However, Mr. Aaron's experience demonstrates that there was controversy in almost every era of the game. In his case, it was a despicable form of racial hatred expressed by a very vocal minority in this country.

Again, "I Had A Hammer" stands out as one of the great books in the sports genre, and stands out as one of my favorite biographies/autobiographies. I rate it the full five stars, and encourage readers of all interests to give this one their attention.

San Francisco has over 50 hills with scenic vistas and small neighborhoods - so these nearly 30 urban walks are top picks for any who want to walk the city's byways. The revised expanded edition has been updated with new maps and color photos and adds three new walks, while an appendix lists the City's 600-plus public stairways. It's a 'must' for any San Francisco travel collection going beyond the general-interest city guide.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Great book to have for anyone who enjoys an adventure. Lots of walking options within the city

We've have been using Edition 1 (published 1984)for ten years. It's our most often used reference for San Francisco hiking. But the copy is now very worn and torn from carrying in back pocket on all those stairway hikes. Almost lost it several times on loans to friends. We are buying the latest edition (No. 6) as a replacement. We'll keep and treasure Edition 1.

We love to see the City close-up and enjoy the neighborhoods. During our reviews of Russian Hill, Pacific Heights, and San Francisco's crookedest street (Lombard Street) - we've used this book to find secret stairways and understand their twisted history. This book is an invaluable resource to making your trip to San Francisco unique -- and get some good exercise too!

Adah's book is a great collection of walks all over the city. As the name implies, all the walks focus on the stairways for which San Francisco is so well known. This has two implications: one is that these walks will wear you out; the second is that, on sunny days, you get incredible views from the tops of all the stairways Adah has you climb.

For locals, the 27 walks cover the entire town from Glen Canyon to Lands End to Potrero Hill. No matter how long you've lived in San Francisco, I guarantee you'll see great spots you've never been to before.

Most of the walks are well off the beaten path for visitors, but a couple cover the classic tourist areas of North Beach, China Town, and Telegraph Hill. The Russian Hill North walk, done on a sunny day, will have anyone believing San Francisco is the most beautiful city on earth.

Adah provides maps, directions, and a great deal of color commentary for each walk. She tends to focus on eccentric details of the local architecture and flora for each walk, lending a whimsical quality to the whole experience.

Two last things to keep in mind. First, because the views are such a big part of these walks, Adah's trips are much better in good weather than in bad. Second, Adah is sometimes a little loose with her directions; I recommend cross checking the directions and the map often.

Damn this book is Flawless it has Olympic stats it has some stats on the old players. The Only thing missing was 1892-1917 stats for players who did not play in the NHA or The NHL. I love the sections on the stats it has the players complete minor league and college stats as well as his Pro stats. It has the place he was drafted and all the transactions. This book has a wrap up of the Draft from 1965-1998 and does a fantastic job at it. The Stats and the Draft coverage is the best.

this book has anything and everything you want to know about hockey its almost to much stuff

If you like hockey, hate hockey, or do not know anything about the inarguably-greatest sports ever, then you definantly need this book. It's a great price too, believe it or not, and it's my personal bible. Anything I need to know about hockey is right here, every single player and all.

This book can tell you everything you every wanted to know about hockey and the tradition of hockey. You get to see so many stats about all the teams and the players of the NHL. A must have for all Hockey fans and players of the wonderful game.

I'm one of those schleps who had the misfortune of investing the CDN $70.00+ dollars on this book when it first came out, only to learn that many of the (in particular non-NHL) statistics were inaccurate or missing completely. This is understandable for the very early players, but still, it seems as though more effort should have been put into this initially. I am interested in the old Hamilton Tigers franchise, and prior to getting the book had already done some research into the early careers of some of the players. Right off, I noticed that there were problems with the Leo Reise and Goldie Prodgers listings. These--and no doubt innumerable others--were rectified in the later edition, but that is little consolation for me. I made my investment, and unless I can find the revised edition cheap, I have no intention on blowing more money just to finally get what I should have gotten in the first place. Still, it has been a useful book at times, so it's not a complete loss, I guess.

I would recommend this book to any serious martial artist, regardless of their style. I have read plenty of books that discuss interpreting kata moves, and at first glance this would appear to be "just another kata book." However, this book goes a step further and discusses determining the strategy of a particular style, and concentrating on finding kata interpretations that fit that strategy.

The only reason I did not give it a 5-star rating comes from some of the "optimized" versions of kata interpretations contained in one of the later chapters of the book. Most of them are quite good, but I was disappointed to see a "2-hand press block" being used to deflect an incoming punch. As one of my old teachers put it, "If you need two hands to block one punch, you're in the wrong fight!"

Rather than presenting a book worth of random applications or cool looking sequences, the authors go much deeper and present you with a methodology for actually understanding kata application.

I have found this book to be very valuable, i've owned it for something like two years and I still open it up regularly, it is defnitely a book that you will use frequently.

Perhaps the best book on the martial arts I have read. The authors help remind us that forms are not a dance, they are deadly techniques in a transmittable form. The book helps you achieve the right mindset for analyzing kata of any style (though the authors are based in Goju-Ryu) to uncover the practical, dangerous moves that have been hidden. A wonderful tool for those looking to develop fighting skill from their chosen art.

This is a must have for any Martial Artist. Having trained in Martial Arts for 20 years I feal that this book will help any student in any style look more deeply at the style they are studying. This is not a beginners book. This is for people who have trained for 3 or 4 years or Brown belt level and up.

Lawrence Kane lives and trains on a different continent to me, and although his style is much the same as the one that I train in, I would have expected to see differences in small particulars of dojo ettiquette, training conventions, kata interpretations and the like.

In reading his book, I felt that he had been watching our school for years and almost every fine nuance in ethos, discipline, terminology and so many other aspects reflected in his book could have been taken from where I learn.

Kane seems to have retained the traditional aspects of Goju training in a world where professional dojo's easily lose the essence of their roots in order to be more commercially acceptable and/or sport orientated. On almost every page I smiled with a mixture of incredulity (is that a word?) and satisfaction as he managed to both confirm the direction of my teachers, and at the same time, offer so much further insight that has given me material for my class planning and personal growth.

I recommend this book without hesitation.

Reading this book was like driving by a car wreck - you know you probably shouldn't keep looking, but somehow you just can't stop. First the good stuff: Harold can ride. Bigtime mileage. Everyday. He also appreciates nature and doesn't let things like wind & rain bother him too much. Now the downside: while the guy claims to work in a missile factory, he's no rocket scientist. Heavy drinking, fast food gluttony, lechery, and latent bigotry were all mildly amusing if somewhat annoying, but his ignorance of bike mechanics was just plain hysterical.
I definitely admire the guy for his feat, and I admit the book was entertaining in a Jerry Springer kind of way, but if this guy can sell a book for $23.95, in the words of Al Pacino,"Somethin's really wrong here!"

I thoroughtly enjoyed reading 28 Days Behind Bars. Wagoner knows how to bring things to life with words. It was as though I were right there with him throughout his tour.

I found this book disappointing, especially after reading the rave reviews of others. This book tells the story of Harold Wagoner's bike ride from Seattle to New York. While I admire him for the adventure, most of the book is just reporting mileage, temperature,and meals. It is more a log book/journal than a travel story. We see little insight or growth from the author as he makes the trip and when it is offered, it is all Archie Bunker and bumper sticker slogans. By the end of the book, I was ready for the trip to be over.

I gather this book is published through the modern day version of a vanity press. There were some enjoyable moments and the author has writing talent. But jarring typo's, punctuation errors, and spell check errors like using "they're" for "there" reduce the enjoyment. He could have benefitted tremendously from the help of a good editor.

I don't think this book was worth the price.

I have just finished reading Wagoner's book and I LOVED IT! It is the best bicycle touring book I've ever read. It really is a first rate adventure. A must read for every cyclist.

Bravo to Harold Wagoner for both an amazing feat and a great story. A must read for any touring cyclist or for anyone interested in the triumph of the human spirit. Wagoner details his 28 day ride from Seattle to NYC dispensing self-deprecating humor and homespun wisdom along the way. Wheel wobbles, headwinds, tailwinds, crosswinds, bears and bees can't stop him, nor can the roadside Sirens he encounters along the way. His eating habits provide an instant cure for anyone concerned about their diet. A heart-warming and life-affirming tale, well told.