Recreation Books

This book is essential reading for anyone seeking the truth about the Titanic.

We recently delved into Titanic literature, starting with the testimony from the stateside investigation. That led to a quest for more information because there were so many unanswered questions. After reading quite a few books, The Last Log of the Titanic finally arrived in the mail. And what a wonderful book!!!

David G. Brown carefully and exactly solves the mysteries involved in how and why the Titanic sank. It is all explained with a knowledge of navigation and engineering.

Read this book with an open mind and an attention to details. If you throw out all your pre-conceived notions from other books, the films, the TV specials etc., and really read what Brown is telling you, you cannot possibly have any doubts about what happened.

The only controversy caused by this book will be brought on by those who will defend their earlier positions on the foundering of this floating hotel.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

I admit that the Titanic movie of 1997 made a big change in my Titanic collecting - mainly before that time I had only about 5 books. One of the books I had was an original from 1912 that was produced due to the fact that there was no radio, Internet or CNN to blast the news into your daily lives. Only the newspapers carried the story and people wanted to know more.

Needless to say, the movie got a lot of people interested in the subject (as it always seems to do whenever a new movie gets produced) Due to this interest all sorts of books got re-published and published for the first time. I started to collect and read and read and read.

I was always interested in the many points of debate that continue on and on, but this book seemed to make so much sense because it aligned with those things that I had read and had questions about but that never really got answered.

There were several reports of iceberg sightings, before the ship hit. There was a report that the alarm bell was rung three times, not three sounds but three different times for three different icebergs. Why did Murdock keep going when they entered the ice field? All the other reasons didn't quite hold up. This author gives forth a logical answer.

The idea that the iceberg grazed along the side of the ship didn't really seem to answer how the ship could go down so fast, the author of this book explains how the ship could have hit. Not only does his explanation make sense but it aligns with the other eye witness accounts of that night.

The list goes on. I can only say that it is well worth the read, and I currently have 58 Titanic related books and have talked and talked to other historians who have their theories.

This is a really good book.

Chris, Founder, McVitamins

I have watched movies and read several books about the Titanic disaster; but, without doubt this is the very, very best I've seen. This book explains in great detail, how things happened. It is written in an easy to read style. It presents numerous references and direct quotes throughout the book, as well as written testimony presented at the official enquires, so it is clearly not simply the author's spectulation. This was one book I could not put down. It answers important questions, such as "Did the nearby frieghter Californian, see Titanic's distress signals; and, if so, why didn't they come to aid the striken liner?", "Were the engines placed in "FULL ASTERN" immediatley when the iceberg was sighted?", "Why were some of the lifeboats only half filled with passengers?", "Would it have been better if the Titanic hit the iceberg head-on instead of side-swiping it?" and "Was the Titanic excessively (and carelessly) speeding to New York in attempt to set a record?" Every page was a pleasure! I just cannot give it enough praise. You won't be sorry if you buy this book.

This is a really good book, but not for Titanic novices (read "A Night to Remember" and its sequal for that). It's a shame the book has such a speculative and rather silly title because it may put-off some of it's intended readership - Titanic buffs.

Refreshingly, rather than rehashing tired old stories, Brown keeps his book narrow and focussed. Drawing from the original statements made for both the American and British official enquiries and his own expertise in ship handling and dynamics, he manages to make a radical yet convincing arguments.

Like some of the other reviewers here, I too had trouble with some of the conclusions. Swerving around icebergs at 21+ knots in an unstabilised hull would have surely caused the odd spilt drink and more to observant passengers. Likewise, I believe the hull did split near the surface, but not on it. But in the context of the book's major conclusions, this is just minor nit-picking!

Highly recommended - crackpot theories on the Titanic sinking are so common it is a real pleasure to find original ideas that are so convincing.

I first read this book in 2000 and found it to be one of the more plausible explanations of the damage suffered by TITANIC when she hit the berg, as well as what happened afterward. Captain Brown has brought what is so lacking in many TITANIC books into LAST LOG OF THE TITANIC--actual shiphandling experience.

Captain Brown had also produced an eminently readable text, one which I think most people will have little trouble understanding.

I cannot reccommend LAST LOG OF THE TITANIC too highly to everyone, TITANIC buff or not.

We got this book and have found it to be very easy to understand, there are a lot of detail on every chapter which should guide you to teach how to swim from a baby (6 months) to a toddler.
I recomend this book to everybody who wants to teach a child to swim

Teach your baby to swim with this proven step-by-step process. You'll enjoy watching your little one steadily become more confident in the water.

Learn to Swim: Step-by-Step Water Confidence and Safety Skills for Babies and Young Children is a beautiful book about teaching kids to swim. It has great pictures, step by step instructions, and games and techniques for teaching your children how to swim. I especially liked the fact that it very clearly stated what children can learn at each stage. So Caleb is now old enough to be learning how to hold his breath. (He's 11 months old.) They not only said he can learn how to hold his breath, but explained how to teach him and what to watch for to see if he's comfortable with it or we need to take some more time. I now have a very clear guide of what I can work on with him and what I might want to wait a bit on.

This is a great resource if you are a new parent, pregnant, or are a child swim instructor. It gives you a lesson by lesson outline. Very useful!

This book goes in-depth into teaching your child to swim. It builds confidence in your child as well as teaching him/her survival skills. The approach is child-centered, not "sink-or-swim" methods. I would recommend this book if you have a newborn (four months) or an older child (5-6 years old) getting a late start on swimming.

Good book. Worth getting.

Boy, this one really brings back the memories! But it also gives one pause for reflection on what real martial arts training is all about.
A wonderful book. I've already read through my copy several times...

Kris Wilder has put together an excellent book of anecdotes and learnings he has gained from the floor of his karate school. These lessons are important philosophical approaches for all martial artists, but they are also great lessons for life in general.

I read the whole book in a single sitting, and recommend it highly to all martial arts instructors and practitioners.

Kris Wilder shares his hard won wisdom through a collection of poignant tales and pithy vignettes. This is a book I can pick up for a few minutes or a few hours and gain something new each time. It is thoroughly enjoyable and easy to read yet thought provoking and profound. I recommend it without reservation.

This book is about so much more than martial arts. It has something to offer anyone seeking wisdom, insight and shared knowledge. I am not a martial arts fan or practitioner but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and will reread it for the gems of wisdom it bestows.

Martin Gardner has written very entertaining and engaging books about an incredibly wide variety of mathematical worlds and puzzles, and in the process made complex mathematical ideas come to life. This CD features 15 of his books in pdf form. The pdf files consist of page scans, which makes the pdf scroll a little slowly, but that isn't much of a problem.

I highly recommend this to anybody interested in recreational mathematics.

Those of us old enough to remember Martin Gardner's columns in Scientific American should buy this CD at least for old times sake. All the favourite characters like Dr Matrix and his daughter are there and it brings back many happy memories of trying to work out some of the problems Martin posed

It's always a pleasure to read anything by Martin Gardner. By getting his works on disk, I can have them on my laptop - much easier than books. The only reason I give this collection 4 instead of 5 stars is that I would have liked the books to be in a more searchable format than PDFs - a minor complaint.

Millions of people around the world have had their interest in mathematics lit, kindled or fed by the writings of Martin Gardner. His regular column "Mathematical Recreations" appeared in "Scientific American" for over a quarter of a century and those articles were readable, entertaining and highly educational.
This CD-ROM is a collection of all his articles organized according to the book in which they appeared. The books are:

*) Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions
*) The Second Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions
*) New Mathematical Diversions
*) The Unexpected Hanging and Other Mathematical Diversions
*) Martin Gardner's 6th Book of Mathematical Diversions from Scientific American
*) Mathematical Carnival
*) Mathematical Magic Show
*) Mathematical Circus
*) The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix
*) Wheels, Life and Other Mathematical Amusements
*) Knotted Doughnuts and Other Mathematical Bewilderments
*) Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers . . . And the Return of Dr. Matrix
*) Fractal Music, Hypercards and More . . .
*) The Last Recreations: Hydras, Eggs, and Other Mathematical Mystifications

The opening page displays icons of all of the books and clicking on any icon switches the display to a split screen where the left section contains the table of contents and the right contains the text of the book. Clicking on any entry in the TOC takes you to that article. The collection is searchable, so if you have only a dim recollection of an article you read years ago, you will still be able to find it.
Martin Gardner is a very humble man, arguing that his skill in mathematical exposition is due to the fact that he does not know very much mathematics. He claims that this forced him to research his subject thoroughly before he began writing the article. I find this the only questionable position that he has ever taken; in my opinion the man is a mathematical genius.

Martin Gardner's 30 years of Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American magazine are some of the most fun and interesting reading I've enjoyed. I searched out back issues in the high school library, had my own subscription, and collected as many of the books as I could find. When I was looking for one of the books I didn't have and found this complete collection, I immediately ordered it. There are very few authors in any field who are as clear in their writing and as enthusiastic in their delivery as he is. The content is easily worth the full 5 stars.

But the reason I dropped the rating to 4 for this particular edition is its sometimes haphazard quality of image scans. In the worst cases, the color or shading in the original figures is now black-and-white and of such high contrast that important distinctions are mostly or completely lost. For example, the reversi piece colors in figure 29 of "New Mathematical Diversions" are indistinguishable as are the four-color map areas (of all things!) in figure 43. Many figures show moire patterns from rescanning the original halftones. Yet other figures have been reproduced with much greater care, even in color. Some pages with landscape layout have been rotated for easier reading but others have not. In a few cases, the black-and-white photographs in my books have been replaced with much better color photos. Some books are missing a back cover scan.

The oddest example though, and somehow in keeping with the topic, is figure 109 in "Fractal Music". In my copy of the book, this is a reproduction of Magritte's "The Two Mysteries" and the caption says so. In this edition, it is a redrawn version and the caption now says it is "a caricature" of the Magritte work. At least 4 of the books appear to be affected by poor images and at least 6 of them appear to be fine.

Despite these problems, it's very handy to have the complete set of books in one place. But I'll be keeping the 4 books with the bad scans until a new edition fixes them.

This is by far the most researched book of its kind on the market today. To say that it is full of fun facts, Mopar models, various engines of the era, etc., etc., would be an understatement. Having lived in those glory days of Mopar myself - and owned and raced a few Mopars of my own - I highly recommend this book for any automotive enthusiasts library.

a good history of early MOPAR cars and the motors that made them great. If you know what a max wedge is you are in the right place. 413 and 426 wedges and then on to the hemi, its MOPAR at its best. Enjoy!

Very good book, but I was hoping to see more of us who raced our MaxWedge and Hemi Mopars on the west coast at LADS, San Fernando, Bakersfield, etc., but the book concentrates primarily on the mid-west and eastern area cars... and it was great to see these guys again. I bought my '62 Plymouth 413 Sport Fury from Milne Bros., trading in my '60 Chevy 348 tri-power, because I was tired of getting beat by the Mopars. My '63 426 Belvedere and '65 Plymouth Hemi also came from Milne Bros. and as Jim points out in this book, the Hemi HP was grossly understated, as mine was producing 543HP out of the box. Blueprinting it produced even more.

Overal, a very good book with a lot of good background and product spec. details. I only wish it had more of what us west coast guys were doing. Jim, FYI, Chrysler made a Teflon valve seal and valve guide machining tool for installing the Teflon seal available during '62. Stopped the 413 sparkplug bad oil fouling!

All that I was hoping for and more - very informative enjoyable book.

For those who love mopar and cool, classic Chryslers, you will love this book. Pictures of some really cool Plymouths and equally serious Dodge classics delight the eyes. A beautiful ca. 1965 Plymouth graces the cover. Note the strong resemblance to the 1965-1966 Dodge Dart 270. A very serious car indeed, that Dart! Super stockers never had it so good!

Book was nicely put together and contains some great pictures as well as reproductions of his first contract, a letter from Richard Nixon, a love letter to his wife, etc. I'm sure there are better books out there in terms of the amount of information about Mantle. Buy the book only if you want to own reproductions of Mantle memorabilia but skip it otherwise.

The book was given to my husband as a gift and he enjoyed it so much that we bought one for a friend. Our friend was equally impressed with the book from the different memorabilia to the overall presentation. It's a book you want to look over again and again.

This book contains many seldom to never seen photographs from the Mantle family archives that make the book priceless. The inserted reproductions of Mantle memorabilia are a perfect supplement that give the reader an insight to Mickey that you can't get anywhere else. Top that off with great stories from Mickey Herskowitz, David Mantle and Danny Mantle and you have a real winner.

Mantle was a one-of-a-kind ballplayer that the sport has not seen since his retirement. Almost 40 years later, Mickey still holds many baseball records including the fastest time from home plate to first base (3.1 seconds), the longest measured home run (565' even though he hit a few in excess of 600' that could not be measured) and most World Series home runs (18).

The legend of #7 will live forever.

My favorite player (my nickname is 'Mickey'). Well done different presentation. I really enjoyed

I got this wonderful book for my father for Christmas and he loves it! It's his favorite book on Mickey Mantle. As a Yankee fan myself I also love the book-it's very touching how Danny and David Mantle talk about their Father.The photos are beautiful and all the little extras are really neat to look at. I recommend this book to Mantle and Yankee fans everywhere.

If my wife read this book, she would divorce me instantly, as she would understand why a Nautically Obsessed person will never change, and will get worse as time goes by.....

Honestly, this book made me realize there are others like me that can't stop thinking about boats and the ocean! It feeds the fire burning in your soul and loads you up with all kinds of facts, concepts, and the author's experience to send you off to the drawing board, the boat show, or maybe West Marine. Great writing and a flow of information that will make you not want to let it down until you've committed to memory. While you're at it, get "Elements of Boat Strength" also. Highly recommended!

Great book for all the same reasons listed by all the other reviews. However I have one to add. At a party, try reading the section titles out loud in a somewhat suggestive tone. It will astound you how almost every single section title can be read literally or perverted. Whether or not the author meant this to be the case he accomplished it quite well as there are many- many sections.

I love books on how things work, and I love books on boats. This one is a great combination of both. It covers a lot of naval architecture subjects and all in just the right depth for the interested novice.

The book begins with a review of different types of hulls and their advantages and disadvantages. That is followed by my favorite section which is the one on the theory of naval architecture - the parameters and how they affect the problem space. After that there is another good section about how to understand a drawing of a hull and relate that to performance characteristics of the boat. Engineers love to talk about tradeoffs and this book covers that really well, including topics like stability and roll resistance, hull strength versus shape and many others.

There is a lot more, but I don't want to spoil the ending, so I will just say that if you are interested in boats as an engineer, sailor or purchaser, then you need to read this book.

Subtitled Insights and Esoterica for the Nautically Obsessed, this book is a direct hit on its intended audience. Read it once through quickly, then enjoy it over and over again like a favorite song, and you will learn an amazing amount about every sort of boat an individual is likely to own or dream about. Gerr covers design and construction, sails and motors, and boats from homemade paddleboat to liveaboard oceangoing cruiser either motor and/or sail, and everything in between. He covers more about boats than you could imagine he would, and writes wonderfully.
It is difficult to say in a few words how useful, or how enjoyable, this book is. I love it.

Love the book. It is full of "Rules of Thumb" that can save tons of time when trying to design a boat or solve a problem. The techniques shown are great for practical application. The author has an uncanny ability to teach complex subjects in a down to earth easy to understand manner. Highly recommended for boatman, yacht designers, marine engineers and naval architects.

Rec'd book on time; cheaper than area bookstores. This is not the first time I purchased items from Amazon and I plan to continue. Great job! Thanks!

This is a book that you'll love. There's a lot of things to learn in it and some terms you probably can't listen anymore. A perfect book for a really baseball fan !

This is a book that you'll love. There's a lot of things to learn in it and some terms you probably can't listen anymore. A perfect book for a really baseball fan !

This baseball dictionary is clear, concise and helpful, particularly for people like me. I love baseball, but when I was growing up, girls weren't raised on sports, so I became a fan with sketchy knowledge of the rules and nuances of the game. Since I bought this book, I've learned a lot about pitching maneuvers, stats, history of the sport, slang terms and dozens of other things that make baseball more and more interesting to watch. I'm very glad I own it.

In baseball, what is a crackerjack? A cradle? A drawing Card? Feel the apple means what? What happens when you go to the pump? Who made up Murderers' Row? Open the New Dickson Baseball Dictionary and you'll find out.

This A to Z complete listing of baseball term is about the best book on the subject there is. Paul Dickson has put together over 570 pages of facts, terms, definitions and trivia that are sure to please every baseball fan.

Filled with over 100 photos and illustrations you are sure to find just about every baseball word you can think of. Also included are a thesaurus, a section of abbreviations and a fully annotated bibliography.

The baseball purest is sure to love this book as a gift, and it is priced to meet most budgets. Overall this book is great reading and makes the perfect handy reference book!

Excellent book. I am not a golfer, but admire Phil Mickelson because it has always seemed to me that he has his priorities straight. His wife and his children are uppermost in his list of what life means to him. Must confess that I merely skimmed the details of the hole to hole play in the Masters tournament being described since I had purchased the book to read about his personal life. However, my husband, who IS a golfer, very much enjoyed the "play by play" in addition to more information on the personal side of Phil. This is an athlete children can look up to and admire without parents fearing an ugly, hidden side. That simply doesn't exist in this athlete. I have always enjoyed watching him play; now I will enjoy those tournaments even more.

This was a very personal book that brought you very close to the life of Phil Mickelson. When he describes his final round at the 04' Masters you feel like you were there with him every step of the way.

It was so good I got a audio copy for my husband.

i find this book very good , iam a golf player and i think that every golf player will enjoyed to read this book , phil mickelson biography is very interesting for a golfer , phil teach : thinks can do when you work hard .

If you are a golf fan, this is a must read. My wife read it too and she doesn't even like golf but she loved it too. Great insights into Phil's personal life, family, and values. Definitely worth the read.

Terry Pluto has written an excellent book and as an Indians fan for 70 years I can easily relate to his personal story and to the history given of the Cleveland Indians. It is an excellent history for the most part, written as only a sports writer can, though he contradicts a couple other writers a few times. I espeically like the emphasis on the heroes of my childhood, Lou Boudreau, Bob Feller, Larry Doby and others on the famous 1948 team. I disagree with his contention that the l948 championship team was not one of the greatest championship teams ever and this is disproved in the detailed book An Epic Season by David Kaiser. Also for a really complete history of the Indians before and leading to 1948, Franklin Lewis wrote a book titled Clevland Indians published in 1949. Sadly, I don't know if that one can still be found or not, even through Amazon. It is more a history. Nonetheless, Our Tribe: A Baseball Memoir is a very good read and brings back the agony of the countless opportunities that former owners of the Indians let get by them. And the new owners may be doing that again today. :( As a personal story it is superb.

Absolutely wonderful weaving of an at times diffcult father-son relationship (congrats for telling it like it was!) and the history of the Cleveland Indians. Never gets bogged down in year-to-year stats and his way of comparing Shoeless Joe and Manny Ramirez's careers was brilliant. The stories about Manny are priceless.

Like all his other sports books, Terry Pluto is easily the best sportswriter on the planet.

This is a superb book because it goes beyond being a great sports book. Terry Pluto's weaving of his relationship with his father into his lifetime love of the Cleveland Indians makes it a book that readers will think about long after they've finished reading it. It's not necessary to be a Tribe fan to enjoy this book. I'd even go as far to say that a reader need not be a baseball fan to feel empathy and self-reflection on his or her parent-child relationship, regardless of whether the person is the parent or the child. I've also read the author's "Loose Balls", a wonderful look back at the American Basketball Association, and recommend that to those who remember the ABA (go Oakland Oaks!) and to those who weren't around to enjoy those years.

This is a fantastic book for any Indians fan who grew up watching games at the old Stadium. It's for all of us who grew up rooting for a sad team who had never won anything before and was never likely to do so in the future. It helps us to remember those days when the important thing wasn't how good the team was or if they had a chance at the Series, but rather spending time with our fathers watching the game. Maybe, just maybe, this book will help us to remember what is really important once again.

This book is as much a story about a son and his relationship with his father as it is about baseball, and tells each of those stories wonderfully. For basball fans it is an entertaining history of the Cleveland Indians and is full of colorful players, managers, and even owners. From the perspective of this one baseball team, the reader has a ring side seat on how much our country, society, and professional sports have changed and grown over the last 75 plus years. Just from the standpoint of the baseball Terry Puto is as good as Ken Burns or George Will.

But the story within the story is really about the author and his father. That relationship is one that is full of joy and sadness, wonderful memories and yet regrets. The author comes to better understand and appreciate his father after a stroke makes it impossible to talk to his father. In a cruel irony, when the time came that the author was ready and wanted to share stories and talk to his father, he was not able to.
All fathers and sons should read this book.

A final comment on Terry Pluto's writing style. I have read three of Mr Pluto's books and appreciate the way he writes in a clean, no non-sense style and yet fills his books with so much detail and color.