The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents-including a long-lost account written by the ship's cabin boy-and penetrating details about whaling and the Nantucket community to reveal the chilling events surrounding this epic maritime disaster. An intense and mesmerizing read, In the Heart of the Sea is a monumental work of history forever placing the Essex tragedy in the American historical canon.

Known simply as the bible among RVers, this exhaustive reference contains over 11,000 detailed listings for parks, service centers, and attractions. Compiled by the experts at Trailer Life, it rates each park with their exclusive triple rating system for everything from cleanliness and amenities to visual appeal. This edition fully embraces the Internet age, with handy charts showing which parks offer Internet and Wi-Fi access and those that accept online reservations. Other helpful features include phone numbers for up-to-the-minute traffic and weather conditions in each state and province, free dump site locations, and more than 70 full color digital maps complete with bridge, ferry, tunnel, and toll information. The guide also covers the rules of the road and towing laws for each state. No matter how far-flung the destination, the Trailer Life Directory 2010 ensures that travelers are never lost, in danger, or unprepared for what lies ahead.

This fresh update of the world's best introduction to safe street-riding techniques now marries color imagery and contemporary road scenes with expanded content and more real road hazard strategies written in clear, concise,easy-to follow instruction that has made the book #1.

The bestselling author's sequel to The Hungry Ocean--a fast- paced account of her return to swordfishing

Linda Greenlaw hadn't been bluewater fishing for ten years- not since the events chronicled in the books The Perfect Storm and The Hungry Ocean-but when her lobster traps aren't paying off, her truck is on its last gasp, and the bills are piling up, she decides to take a friend up on his offer and captain a boat for a season of swordfishing. A decade older, and with family responsibilities, she's a different person heading out to sea, but any reluctance is quickly tempered by the magnetic lure of adventure. And the adventures begin almost immediately: The ship turns out to be rusty and ancient, and even with a crew of four Greenlaw is faced with technical challenges. There are the expected complexities of longline fishing and the nuances of reading the weather. Her greatest challenge, however, comes when the boat's lines inadvertently drift into Canadian waters and Greenlaw is thrown in jail.

Capturing the moment-by-moment details of her journey, Greenlaw tells a story about human nature and the nature around us, about learning what can be controlled and when to let fate step in. Seaworthy is a compelling narrative about a person setting her own terms and finding her true self between land and water.

Used extensively as a reference source for the FAA Knowledge Exams, this resource includes basic knowledge that is essential for all pilots, from beginning students to those pursuing advanced pilot certificates. This updated guide covers a wide array of fundamental subjects, including principles of flight, aircraft and engine structures, charts and graphs, performance calculations, weather theory, reports, forecasts, and flight manuals. Required reading for pilots for more than 25 years and formerly published as an Advisory Circular (AC 61-23C), this new edition is now listed as an official FAA Handbook.

West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
Regarded by many as one of the best adventure books ever!

Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that “the longitude problem” was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day—and had been for centuries.  Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land.  Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution.  One man, John Harrison, in complete opposition to the scientific community, dared to imagine a mechanical solution—a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land.  Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of Harrison’s forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer.  Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.
 

First published in 1969, this classic manual of automotive repair equips VW owners with the knowledge to handle every situation they will come across with any air-cooled Volkswagen built through 1978, including Bugs, Karmann Ghias, vans, and campers. With easy-to-understand, fun-to-read information -- for novice and veteran mechanics alike -- anecdotal descriptions, and clear language, this book takes the mystery out of diagnostic, maintenance, and repair procedures, and offers some chuckles along the way. This edition features new information on troubleshooting, new photos, and an updated resource list.

Cris Sommer Simmons, something of an American motorcycle pioneer herself, has been collecting photographs of women motorcyclists for nearly thirty years. A long time rider, often on a Harley-Davidson, she has scoured photo collections across the country and then spend hundreds of hours researching the contents of the photographs she has found. This book is the best of her veritable treasure trove. 'Charming' is the best word to describe each and every shot. Equally, one might say 'informative' or even 'evocative' but in truth this is a hugely significant work that seeks to charm and inject the reader with nostalgia for a surely bygone era.

The cultural resilience of fairy tales is incontestable. Surviving over the centuries and thriving in a variety of media, fairy tales continue to enrich our imaginations and shape our lives. This Norton Critical Edition of The Classic Fairy Tales examines the genre, its cultural implications--and its critical history. The editor has gathered fairy tales from around the world to reveal the range and play of these stories over time. The Classic Fairy Tales focuses on six different tale types: Little Red Riding Hood,' Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Cinderella, Bluebeard, and Hansel and Gretel. It includes multicultural variants of these tales, along with sophisticated literary rescriptings. Each tale type is preceded by an introduction, and annotations are provided throughout. Also included in this collection of over forty stories are tales by Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde. Criticism collects twelve essays that interrogate different aspects of fairy tales by exploring their social origins, historical evolution, psychological dynamics, and engagement with issues of gender and national identity. Bruno Bettelheim, Robert Darnton, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Karen E. Rowe, Marina Warner, Zohar Shavit, Jack Zipes, Donald Haase, Maria Tatar, Antti Aarne, and Vladimir Propp provide critical overviews. A Selected Bibliography is included.

About the Series--Each Norton Critical Edition includes an authoritative text, contextual and source materials, and a wide range of interpretation--from contemporary perspectives to the most current critical theory--as well as a bibliography and a chronology of the author's life and work.