Thomas M. Heineman wrote: > > > Here's another book question: What are the essential books a beginning(or experienced) sea kayaker should have in his or her library, and why? There are now many books on sea kayaking that deliver pretty much the same information. What distinguishes one from another? Which would you recommend first, and why?<<< > > In my opinion, a great beginning book that would also serve as a useful > reference for experienced kayakers is "The Essential Sea Kayaker" by > David Seidman. I agree on this one wholeheartedly. The book is excellent for two reasons: 1. The book is by a professional writer (David Seidman) unlike many of the kayaking books out there that are main the product of practicioners not writers. So the Essential Sea Kayaker is well organized and as thorough as a well written story. 2. The guiding light behind and throughout the book is Andy Singer. For those of you who don't know Andy, in brief Andy is a leading boat designer (Wilderness Systems has a handful of model designed by him including I think the Picolo), an early importer of kayaks and an early instructor in the field. A very low key guy, he clearly has observed and studied every aspect of sea kayaking from many angles and imparted this knowledge to David Seidman to distill for readers. All of the excellent drawings are by Andy, BTW. I have only one beef with David's book...the short shrift he gave folding kayaks. I happened to meet him a few weeks after the book was published (along with Andy whom I already knew). I asked David why had he said the things he had regarding foldables. He was taken aback and finally uttered something about "that is what _people_ say about them." I pressed him a bit more with "have you ever even been in a folding kayak?" His answer was no. At that moment I vowed I would one day set the record straight on this breed of boat. A year or so later, I was contacted by his publishers on some unrelated matter (mailing lists) and I proposed a folding kayak book to which they agreed. In looking back at the episode later, I chuckled to myself realizing that in my mania to get a book out I was following in the footsteps of another indignant Diaz a half millenium ago, one Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Diaz del Castillo had been a foot soldier in the army of Cortez during the conquest of the Mexican Aztec empire in 1519. Many years later, while retired to the good life in Guatemala, he heard of a book that had just been published titled "The History of the Conquest of New Spain (Mexico)". That author was writing from Spain using secondary sources without ever even being to Mexico. Diaz del Castillo read the book and got mad. Although almost 80 years old, he sat down and dictated from memory a book to tell how the events really had unfolded. His book, "The _True_ History of the Conquest of New Spain," is a classic of Latin American history and much of what we know of the era comes from his vivid descriptions and accounts. I mentioned all this in my newsletter by way of introducing the folding kayak book. A few months later I got an enthusiastic letter from a reader thanking me for putting him on to the Diaz del Castillo book which he thought was great! Goes to show that you never know what people will pick up on in what you tell 'em. :-) ralph diaz ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Nov 20 1999 - 08:16:06 PST
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