Editorial Review

Atlantic is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Poets to potentates, seers to sailors, fishermen to foresters—all have a relationship with this great body of gray and heaving sea.

Winchester chronicles that relationship, making the Atlantic come vividly alive. More than a mere history, Atlantic is an unforgettable journey of unprecedented scope by one of the most gifted writers in the English language.

Reviews

Another hit from Winchester...., November 1, 2010

Winchester's winsome winner, November 3, 2010

A Disappointing Effort from a solid author, December 13, 2010
Simon Winchester is one of my favorite authors. I have read all of his books and did not wait long to order this, his newest. It started like several of his others with a geologist's explanation of history... always interesting. He then laid out the vital importance of the ocean to human evolution, civilization, exploration, and history... good stuff but lacking the detail and real human accounts of Krakatoa or Crack at the Edge of the World.

The disappointment for me was that a large portion of the book is devoted to Dr. Winchester's view on how climate change is affecting the Atlantic and speculation on what future impact it will have. He gives anecdotal stories without solid science or data references and seems to imply that whatever changes have occurred are the result of man's use of the ocean an are harmful or bad - not just historical changes. I felt as if I'd been tricked into reading a case for man-caused global warming. Winchester is obviously passionate about the Atlantic and concerned about its future. However, I bought the book as a historical retrospective and did not care to read an exhaustive op-ed about climate change.

Winchester turns nonfiction accounts into page-turning literature, November 9, 2010
"Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean."
- Dionysius Lardner, Irish scientific writer and lecturer, 1793-1859

This quote opens Simon Winchester's latest book, ATLANTIC. The bestselling author of KRAKATOA and THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN has made a career of turning nonfiction accounts into page-turning literature. Now he is taking on the vast infinity that is the Atlantic Ocean in a work that reads like crisp fiction as it covers this immense space through a number of different themes, blending both fact and folklore along the way.

What gives the book even more poignancy is how Winchester interjects his personal experiences into the numerous references he provides regarding the great Atlantic Ocean. Once nicknamed "the pond" by Victorian sailors of the 1600s, this body of water has been the site of famous events and the inspiration for thousands of artistic and literary productions.

Early on in the preface, Winchester mentions the Atlantic Charter of 1941. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the accord that signaled a changing of the guard, with the United States taking over from Britain as titular leader of the Western world. Winchester also refers to the Atlantic Ocean as a body of water that geologists predict will continue to transform in shape and size dramatically. Because of all the change that has taken place with the ocean over thousands of years, it is a reasonable subject that can have its story told in the form of biography.

Winchester indicates that the origins of the Atlantic can be traced as far back as the Jurassic period 195 million years ago. However, it was not until the age of early aquatic explorers that this mighty ocean was discovered and recognized. The voyages of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus are well known. Yet the first European to cross the Atlantic and reach the New World was actually a Norse Viking, most likely from Norway. Prior to Columbus reaching the New World, Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci was the first to realize North America as a continent and the Atlantic as a discrete and separate body of water --- an ocean.

Details of the great ships that crossed the Atlantic are covered at length by Winchester, with particular attention given to the HMS Challenger. Initially a warship, the Challenger not only traversed the Atlantic visiting numerous ports along the way but also carried a team of scientists and geologists during its initial three-and-a-half-year voyage. The findings of these men of science included the discovery of hundreds of specimens --- both animal and plant --- many of which still exist today. This was a formidable intellectual achievement that opened up the world and was the most comprehensive study of an ocean ever undertaken.

ATLANTIC provides proof of the indelible inspiration the Atlantic Ocean has made in the areas of arts and literature. Thousands of poems, stories and artistic achievements claim the ocean as their muse. Among Winchester's references are the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Seafarer" and numerous writings by the great William Shakespeare that provide some of the first Atlantic-inspired literary works. Architecture along the thousands of Atlantic coastline areas also represents respect for the sea. French composer Claude Debussy titled three of his major works "La mer," which helped attach the word "Impressionism" to a new style of sea-centered music. Winchester also points out several famous pieces of art, with none more notable than those of English artist J.M.W. Turner, whose "The Wreck of the Minotaur" exemplified the power of the great Atlantic Ocean.

No story of the Atlantic would be complete without outlining the role this body of water has played in the war experience. The Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and the English all sailed ships across the Atlantic during colonization efforts with the intent on beating their opponents to new territories. Winchester regales us with the golden age of pirates on the Atlantic, a term that originated from the Caribbean references to buccaneers and privateers. Writers like Robert Louis Stevenson and Daniel Defoe told of the exploits of these infamous traverses and villains of the Atlantic.

What Simon Winchester does best is to make his biography of the Atlantic Ocean read like a compelling fictional narrative that is never dull. In the hands of a writer with his gifts and talent for phraseology, what could have been an antiseptic textbook type of read is instead an exciting and enthralling literary experience that will appeal to anyone who is interested in history and engaging storytelling.

A rather ridiculous book, December 22, 2010
I have enjoyed a number of Winchester's books, but this was not one of them. He is at his best when he is detailing a story that is not well-known and surprising. That was what drove the success of his previous work. In this book, he takes on an enormous subject and ends up with a catalog of his research interspersed with totally unsupported assertions and some rather dull writing about his travels.

The structural problem with the book is that Winchester has chosen a cumbersome thematic structure to organize his writing: the seven stages of man listed in the "All the world's a stage..." speech from As You Like It. While this may have seemed like a clever way to tackle a sprawling subject like the Atlantic, the structure overwhelms any insight Winchester may or may not have had about the Atlantic. Seeking to fill this outline, Winchester stuffs everything into it that either (a) features the words "sea" or "Atlantic" or (b) happens to have taken place in or near the Atlantic. The result is a combination of the obvious (jet travel ended regular ocean liner service) or the downright tautological (in a section on "cities," Winchester writes brief descriptions of New York, Cape Town, St. Helena, none of which have any connection to each other and all of which essentially boil down to the pointless statement 'these are Atlantic cities because they are on the Atlantic ocean.")

Unsupported assertions abound. Apparently, musical instruments were not powerful enough before the 18th century to tackle the sea as a subject (whatever that may mean in the context of music). The "paramount" issue in the story of the Pilgrims is the Atlantic. What? How do you back that up? Even more bizarre, Winchester then undermines his own point by noting that it was important only as an obstacle to be crossed. Well, yeah. The Pilgrims are remembered for the founding of New England, not for their (total lack of ) seamanship or connection to the Atlantic.

Aside from the structural problems, Winchester's prose is often leaden and tedious. The opening story about his transatlantic crossing drags on for too long, pulls in totally unrelated issues like the meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt that resulted in the Atlantic Charter, and then peters out with no apparent point. As other reviewers have noted, almost everything is weighed down with vague modifiers. I suspect that these pleading modifiers are Winchester's unconscious attempt to make his lack of insight or, frankly, point sound "important."

Put simply, the book is a mess. The interesting subjects are covered in other books in better detail and with better writing. Winchester's writing about himself is dull and overwrought. Readers are better off sticking to books where Winchester has tackled a small, somewhat esoteric subject.

The Axis of Western Civilization, December 6, 2010

A tantalizing but frustrating read, November 14, 2010
This is an interesting book that could have been far more interesting if it were not so frustrating to read.

The book is filled with non-sequiturs that leave the reader in total puzzlement. An example is found on page 122: "Who now remembers James Rennell, for instance, a young sailor from Devon, England, who first came upon the Atlantic proper on a long-sea trick from military service in Bengal." What?! Actually I think we can be fairly certain that it was some paleolithic man or woman "who first came on the Atlantic proper." We can only try to guess what a "long-sea trick" is or what this has to do with Bengal.

The author drops bombshells on us and then blithely goes on to a new topic. We learn that tobacco has been found in an Egyptian tomb. This is a potentially profound discovery. When was this discovered and by whom? Are archeologists in general agreement about this? Has it been tested to determine where it was grown? Is it possible that there is an explanation other than a transatlantic voyage? You will never find out reading this book.

Casting his net too widely this time, December 27, 2010

Simon Winchester's books are always an adventure of one sort or another. He chooses a topic--person, place, event, in one stunningly expansive outing ("The Meaning of Everything") the Oxford English Dictionary--and covers that topic with infinite range and detail. I make it a point to listen to his books on audio, read by the author, for the joy of his linguistic pirouettes and pyrotechnics. I like his style.

For his latest book, though, I believe he cast his net too widely. The title says it all: Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories . In writing about the Atlantic Ocean he gave himself license to include anything that ever existed or occurred on, in or near it; art and music related to it in any way; warfare, trade, piracy, transportation of people and goods on or over the ocean; our overfishing and pollution of it; what will happen if global warming causes it to rise; and finally, the predictions (both dismal and majestic) of how the Atlantic will cease to exist when the continents ricochet back around and pinch it off in a few million years.

Realizing that he needed a structure to manage this mass of material, Winchester chose Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" monologue from "As You Like It," relating aspects of the ocean to the stages: infant, school-boy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon (foolish old man), and second childhood. I didn't think this conceit worked perfectly, and in fact the structure that could bring order to this book probably doesn't exist.

Winchester's first career was in geology, and his fervor for eruptions and in fact all geological phenomena makes the Atlantic a promising topic for him. On the other hand, writing about individuals--you can scarcely call these books biographies--somehow focuses and settles his writing; "human included for scale," so to speak. I hope his next book will, indeed, be more focused.

Linda Bulger, 2010

Epic Sea Battles. War At Sea., December 8, 2010

A Fine Slice Through the Grey Waters., December 6, 2010

Editorial Review

Cycling is exploding in a good way. Urbanites everywhere, from ironic hipsters to earth-conscious commuters, are taking to the bike like aquatic mammals to water. BikeSnobNYC cycling's most prolific, well-known, hilarious, and anonymous blogger brings a fresh and humorous perspective to the most important vehicle to hit personal transportation since the horse. Bike Snob treats readers to a laugh-out-loud rant and rave about the world of bikes and their riders, and offers a unique look at the ins and outs of cycling, from its history and hallmarks to its wide range of bizarre practitioners. Throughout, the author lampoons the missteps, pretensions, and absurdities of bike culture while maintaining a contagious enthusiasm for cycling itself. Bike Snob is an essential volume for anyone who knows, is, or wants to become a cyclist. ... Read more

Reviews

Great to see "The Snob" in book form, May 1, 2010
The Bike Snob writes a wickedly funny blog poking holes in practically every pretension in the cycling world. His blog careens unexpectedly between the worlds of pro cycling, hipsters, fixed gear bikes, Craigslist ads and the indignity of bike commuting (especially in New York). He never runs out of targets -- the studied poses of various cycling subcultures has given him an unending stream of targets.

In print -- both in his columns in Bicycling Magazine, and now in this book -- he's a bit toned done. In order to reach a broader audience, his writing is a little more accessible, with fewer self-referential, super-inside jokes that propel the humor in his blog. In print, the satire is still there, but the very sharpest edges have been softened a bit.

What's left is a still-funny survey of the world of bicycling in America -- from a brief history of cycling, to a tour of the various cycling subcultures, to some guidance on how to perform basic bike maintenance tasks. The Snob also addresses the "real world" of urban cycling today: what it's like to try to control your temper when a car nearly kills you in traffic, or how to stay warm and dry in a winter rain. And although The Snob avoids organized "bicycle advocacy" efforts (and explains why in his book), he manages to deliver some solid pro-bicycle messages of his own: "Telling cyclists to get out of the road is like telling women to get of the voting booth and go back into the kitchen, or telling Japanese-American people to 'Go back to China.' The ignorance inherent in the statement is almost more offensive than the sentiment behind it."

While he's at it, he tries to knock some sense into cyclists themselves -- questioning the sanity of riding brakeless track bikes on the street, for example, and poking fun at the marketing-driven compulsion of "roadies" to endlessly upgrade their bikes (especially those that are most likely to get stolen anyway).

Some overall themes that emerge are encouraging to the newcomer ("get out and ride"), while persuading the cycling-obsessed to take themselves (and their bikes) a bit less seriously. (He holds a special disdain for "bicycle fetishists" who are more focused on their gear than on riding: "They keep their bicycles clean all the time, they fear scratches like they're herpes, and they don't ever ride in the rain...so their bikes won't get dirty or rusty. They're like the people who collect toys but don't remove them from the package so as not to diminish their value." )

The book is a must-buy for fans of the blog, and great gift for the cyclist in your family.

Fun on two wheelz!, May 10, 2010
I don't read BikeSnobNYC's blog, and the few times I've checked it out it was a little too all over the place for me to really get into.

The Bike Snob book, on the other hand, is nearly as much fun as riding itself. It's relatively brief but will leave you satisfied with a solid little knowledge of the history of bicycles and bicycle-related subcultures, why to do certain things and not other things on/with your bike, and how to maximize the fun (and utility) of cycling.

BikeSnobNYC is enormously clever, makes plenty of fun similes ranging from spot-on ("In a lot of ways, being a cyclist is like being a vampire. ... Both cyclists and vampires are cultural outcasts with cult followings who clumsily walk the line between cool and dorky.") to a hilarious stretch ("The Urban Cyclist is one of the very few groups of cyclists among whom cigarette smoking is not only acceptable but considered "cool," which is sort of like being really into performance cars but driving around with rags shoved up your tailpipe."), and overall just seems like a good guy. He has clearly thought about every in and out of cycling more than pretty much anyone, and really does make some strong arguments for being conscientious about your life with a bicycle, as well as life in general.

The author isn't out to make you feel stupid, or to give you a step-by-step on how to become a bike snob. He doesn't have any brands or particular types of bikes to push (although you've got some explaining to do if you ride with handlebars chopped more narrow than your own hips). He seems genuinely interested in getting more people on bikes, and the people who are already on bikes to be on their bikes more often. Overall it's just a very enjoyable read, and will encourage you to bike more and to think more.

My only complaint is that the included stickers are not very waterproof. Where would I stick one but on my down tube?

I Loved It!!, May 25, 2010
I'm a big fan of his blog, but this was a real surprise to me. Very funny of course, but much , much more. A real love letter to cycling, with an historical perspective and just a fun read from beginning to end. You'll end up loving the Snob and being more motivated than ever before to just ride. The Bikesnob uses cycling as a metaphor for life, and his view of life is witty, funny and profound.

An ode to bicycling, not bicycles., June 20, 2010
This book is not a reprisal of BikeSnobNYC's blog. It is a book that is made possible by the blog, and it is a book that many people have tried to write, but few have succeeded in riding the thin line between advocacy and obnoxiousness.

In his blog BikeSnobNYC, has poked fun at all aspects of bicycling subculture for many years. This has earned him a broad and somewhat eclectic following. His writing on the blog is rapier-sharp, but it far toned-down in the book, which is apparently aimed at a wider audience.

This book basically tells why BikeSnob thinks cycling is great; what cycling is all about; and a little bit about how to enjoy life and not get killed on the street.

As a cyclist myself, and a semi-regular reader of BikeSnob's blog, I enjoyed the book immensely. But beyond, that, this is the type of book I would give to my non-cycling friends who just need a little nudge to get them on a two-wheeler of their own.

Required reading for your loved ones, June 9, 2010
Here it it, everyone's favourite bicycle blog in the hardcover bookway.

As a long time reader of Bikesnob, I ordered the book not sure what to expect, the hyperlinked format of a blog does not intuitively translate well in printed form. I was pleasantly surprised.

This book is essential reading for the loved ones of every bike-nerd. It helps explain why we ride to an audience that doesn't.

Although slightly NY-centric, the book has mass-appeal and is easy to read (in a good, readable way, not in a special-ed way).

I actually think that several chapters should be required reading for all learner drivers and driver's ed students.

If you can actually get your wife/girlfriend/partner/helper-monkey to read it, you will not regret it..

OK Bicycle humor, November 8, 2010
A humor book offering social commentary on the opinions & attitudes of different groups of cyclists (Roadie, Mountain Biker, etc). The author makes clever observations on human kind he expresses in colorful & memorable characterizations ("If you're unfamiliar with the newspaper, it's something people used to read before the internet. Basically it was like reading a giant tablecloth . . ."). While lewd comments are a tradition in humor going back to Chaucer the author mentions pornography, sex and genitals a little more frequently than is necessary. After reading the introduction a woman I know was put off and did not read further. At the very least this is a book for guys.

Ignore all sub-5 star reviews, June 7, 2010
A wonderful book, it fills a huge gap that nobody else could or would have filled...and if they'd tried, it wouldn't have succeeded nearly as well. It's not a book of facts, though there are facts in it, and although it's billed as a book-o-rants, it's way more than that, I'd say.

If you take it sentence by sentence or section by section, you won't fully appreciate its contribution, which is that here, now, in the midst of sharply dilineated cycling factions, against each other as much as we are against the non-cycling world, BikeSnob shakes us all by the shoulders, gently slaps our faces to get us to snap out of it, and says "Look at what you're doing and laugh at yourself and reexamine everything you think about the totem pole of bike riders."

It is funny, but not trying-too-hard funny, and that's a tough little tiny dot to hit. Eben comes off as casual, one of us, but has a way with words that belies his mid-30s age and his authorookieship. He has a style, it's polished, and I like it a lot. It's a cheap book--$16.95. You'll get many times that out of it in a new personal and global bike perspective, information, and entertainment. A whopping success, I'd say.

GP

Sofa King Funny, November 19, 2010
Plainly, if you like the blog, the book is a bonus. The Bike Snob put real effort into 'crafting' this book: It's well written (a clear voice), the writing is humorous with insight (substantive material), and the book itself is noticeably constructed in a way that doesn't suck (It's a hardcover with a high-quality binding; the paper and page design is also notable).

I think readers transitioning from the blog will appreciate this book and find it worth the cash.

Great writing!, November 17, 2010
I've read the first 60 pages and it's just great. Lots of insight into the cycling world and very creative writing. If you know a cyclist, this would be a great gift.

great blog, great book, November 11, 2010
I've been reading his blog for a long time now...the book is right there with the same wit, humor and quality. Love me some BSNYC ... Read more

Editorial Review

From the bestselling author of The Art of Travel comes a wittily intriguing exploration of the strange "non-place" that he believes is the imaginative center of our civilization.

Given unprecedented access to one of the world’s busiest airports as a “writer-in-residence,” Alain de Botton found it to be a showcase for many of the major crosscurrents of the modern world—from our faith in technology to our destruction of nature, from our global interconnectedness to our romanticizing of the exotic. He met travelers from all over and spoke with everyone from baggage handlers to pilots to the airport chaplain. Weaving together these conversations and his own observations—of everything from the poetry of room service menus to the eerie silence in the middle of the runway at midnight—de Botton has produced an extraordinary meditation on a place that most of us never slow down enough to see clearly. Lavishly illustrated in color by renowned photographer Richard Baker, A Week at the Airport reveals the airport in all its turbulence and soullessness and—yes—even beauty. ... Read more

Reviews

Brilliant!, December 28, 2009
This is my first experience of Alain de Botton's writing and after devouring this book in less than 2 hours (partly due to it's brevity and partly because I enjoyed it so much) I'll be looking to read more of his work.

I'm probably a little unusual in that I love airports and attempt to arrive much earlier than is really necessary so I can get airside as soon as possible and begin to immerse myself in the world of the terminal. I've never been to terminal 5 but the world that de Botton describes could be any large airport terminal; it feels very familiar.

I loved de Botton's perceptive writing and his incisive and insightful look at the lifeblood of the airport. The book is funny, interesting and very engaging. He meets a variety of people and captures their essence in a few short words; impressive observational writing. The photographs by Richard Baker make the book and it wouldn't be as good or feel as complete without them.

This little book is thoroughly enjoyable for the high quality writing and high quality photography. It's one of my favourite books read this year and I'll be getting The Art of Travel soon!

Craftsmanship, October 3, 2010
I have long lamented that Mr. De Botton's publishers can't seem motivated enough to provide color illustrations. I would gladly repurchase a new edition of The Architecture of Happiness, among others, if the illustrations could be redone to the quality of those in A Week at the Airport. Now, having established myself as a reader who likes pretty pictures, I will go on record to say that if Mr. De Botton were responsible for a picture-free user's manual of some piece of software in painfully tiny print, I would still purchase it and read it cover to cover.

This man has something worthwhile to say and a piercing intellect with which to say it. The executive who chose him to profile the airport should be promoted. Fine writing is like a journey and as Mr. De Botton has taught us, travel is an art. Obviously the author leaves traces of his biases and interests in any work and reading this work only serves to increase my envy of those travelers who, having encountered the man at the table, were able to engage him in a two-sided conversation.

However, a one-sided conversation with this author quite suffices. Lest your powers of perception be dim, this is a book about an airport--nothing more, nothing less. We need, sometimes, to be reminded of the successes of our culture and the example of a Ghanian family leaving London with a prized new possession sums it up nicely. The airport may contain a posh and comfortable retreat for the wealthy, but as a whole represents the strivings of an entire civilization to explore and do business to the limits of the globe itself.

An airport is an enterprise worth describing and this book does credit to the concept of turning a trained observer loose on what may otherwise escape our attention.

Highest Recommendation

"A Week at the Airport" is more compelling than flight itself., September 21, 2010
If you've ever imagined where the airport departures timetable might take you, Alain de Botton shares your travel lust. The author was fortunate to receive an assignment to set up a desk at the new Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow Airport for a week, and write about his observations. It is our good fortune to observe his week, and enjoy the unprecedented access he shares with us in "A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary."

His assignment as Writer in Residence gave him full privileges to wander the airport, night and day, and he doesn't miss a thing from security, loneliness, behind-the-scenes workers, and mechanical marvels. de Botton writes with a conversational tone as though he is thinking aloud, as in his other books, and he invites us in to look into the lives of travelers.

I look forward to seeing the airport through de Botton's eyes the next time I pack a bag and travel. And, with great anticipation, I will also await Alain de Botton's next book, wherever the world takes him.

Helen Gallagher Release Your Writing: Book Publishing, Your Way

Boring and depressing, November 10, 2010
Most people are excited about an upcoming trip and the new adventures they will have. This book dwells on the negative: fears of flying, worries, a father fearful that his family will be annoyed with him on vacation, etc. Cold and thoughtful, instead of being exuberant and adventurous. A real downer.

not about the airport life, December 3, 2010
I've expected a sophisticated and colourful description of a life at the airport with some new interesting information since I knew author have been given an unrestricted pass to all airport areas. However this book is 5% about life at the airport and 95% poetic and boring tirades about life in general. As someone with eyes and ears I know very well the diversity of human emotions being expressed at airports however not having a chance to see more from any airport than a regular traveler I wanted to read more about interesting aspects of an airport life hidden from travelers eyes. This book doesn't provide this at all.

AIRPORTS are FASCINATING, October 5, 2010
I am an avid reader of Alain's work. This is one of my favorites. It's brief yet so knowledgeable about how people interact and react to airports. Read it, it's fast and a great book to add to your library.

Excellent, November 17, 2009
Classic de Botton. Insightful, engaging, written with an eye for detail and a depth few other writers can match.

Lighter Than Air, November 27, 2010
Having read the Times review, I expected a bit more philosophy and a lot fewer inane musings. A waste of time but for the quality photography. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythicin the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was inthe twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the SouthPacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the SouthPacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crewdrifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbingto weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drasticmeasures in the fight for survival. Nathaniel Philbrick useslittle-known documents-including a long-lost account written by theship's cabin boy-and penetrating details about whaling and theNantucket community to reveal the chilling events surrounding thisepic maritime disaster. An intense and mesmerizing read, In theHeart of the Sea is a monumental work of history forever placingthe Essex tragedy in the American historical canon. ... Read more

Reviews

A gripping story of men lost at sea, May 26, 2000
There have been many great stories of survival and tragedy on the seas, and this book is one of the best of them. At one time the story of the Whaleship Essex was well known in America, but gradually that story faded into memory. Nathaniel Philbrick brings that memory back to life again with his very well written book. The main events in this book took place in the time period of 1819-1821. The Essex was based on Nantucket Island, and in the first part of the book there is a very interesting history of Nantucket and the Whaling Trade. Enough information is given so that we understand the world that the men of the Essex lived in, and the ordeal that lay before them. The Essex was believed to be a lucky ship, but that reputation of good luck would soon be overwhelmed at sea. After several months at sea, the Essex was attacked and rammed by an eighty-five foot whale. It is fascinating to read about the attack of the giant whale on the ship, and to realize that the attacking whale was the actual basis for the whale in "Moby Dick". The Essex was severely damaged and in danger of sinking after the whale attack, and the crew faced the grim prospect of a desperate journey in open boats across the Pacific Ocean. The story of their battle for survival with little food or hope of rescue will grip your heart. Terrible choices of survival had to be made, and there are graphic accounts of starvation and cannibalism in the book. This is truly the story of a great tragedy at sea, but there is also the hope and endurance that can sometimes be found even in the darkest moments. There are moments of wonder with thoughts and descriptions of whales and the ever changing sea. I recommend this book to everyone that loves the history of the Sea, and the spirit of survival against all odds.

Great book that can be enjoyed several ways., May 8, 2000
All too often a book telling a story may also require that the equipment or the vessel used to be described. Much less frequent is the help of illustrations to let a reader who may know little to nothing about the construction (in this case) of a Whaling Vessel, understand the explanations and gain further enjoyment from the book. A further tribute to the Author is that the detail given of the ship The Essex and the implements of the Whaling Trade were of an appropriate length. Too long and the reader would have been lost in a maze of technical jargon, too little and understanding all that happened would not have been possible.

For anyone desirous of going much deeper into the History of Nantucket, or of Whaling, there are 39 pages of notes written in prose form at the end of the book. They are organized by chapter, and they are further supplemented by a Bibliography.

Mr. Philbrick clearly is a man qualified to relate this tale which records one of the more miserable tales of human suffering. It would have been easy and disappointing to let this story turn into a lurid 93 day telling of decisions and actions that no person should ever be forced to make. The Author maintained a scholarly approach, together with objectivity on some points of contention/speculation, of the events and how they may or may not actually have happened. He also offers insight into how these massive creatures communicate, and how that could have played a role in the collission.

The Author also relates modern day medical study and facts about what physical and emotional torments the survivors endured. I thought this was a welcome addition to the understanding of just how horrible this experience was.

This is the only book I have read on the History of the Essex. The book is readable even if your knowledge of ships, like mine, is near zero. And the story told without embellishment is both terrifying and amazing.

A very enjoyable book.

Harrowingtale of survival, June 17, 2000
In 1819 the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by a very large sperm whale. The ship sank and the crew was forced to sail across thousands of miles of the Pacific ocean fighting thirst and starvation. This was the story that inspired Melville's Moby Dick. It is absorbing, well researched, and reads like a good adventure novel, only it is true. It is elegant from start to finish and I say elegant because of its restraint. Philbrick had every chance to play this one for the bleacher seats, but didn't.

We could have gotten a long saga of castaways dying of thirst and starvation with all of the drama of a potboiler. He could have given us a day by day description of the sea trek, but instead the trek is mercifully taken up in 90 pages. (Don't fret, you will get the anxiety wobblies during this phase of the book.) Philbrick has fully researched the physiology of dying of starvation and thirst and spares us none of the details. To survive, the crew resorted to the drawing of lots, execution and cannibalism. We learn about the history, quite plentiful in fact, of survival cannibalism from the Raft of the Medusa to the Andean plane crash. It is not a book for the squeamish.

It is also a book about Nantucket, whaling, men at sea, celestial navigation, maritime commerce, and more. Never are the facts crammed down us like so many notecards in the author's collection, but are deliciously laid out in the context of the story. It is not a long book, but it doesn't seem to short either. Like most good books, it made me want to learn more about the subject, in this case the fascinating history of whaling.

Riveting, harrowing account--terrifying and gripping, May 29, 2000
After reading and re-reading Junger's The Perfect Storm last summer, I wondered if it were only a fluke that a land-lover like myself could become so engrossed in a maritime yarn. After reading In the Heart of the Sea, it is clear that this was no fluke. With little to no experience with nautical life, I was quickly caught up in this drama at sea.

Like Junger, Philbrick recounts a historical, nonfiction tale with the drama and tension exceeding much of today's bestselling fiction. His attention to detail gives a documentary feel and paints a vivid portrait of the struggle of survival. Specifically, I was continually impressed with the way Philbrick wove the specific details of whale hunting and sailing with the driving narrative--a narrative that will keep the pages turning quickly.

In addition, Philbrick writes with a keen sense of imagery, pulling the reader into the story by appealing to all senses. As a result, the reader finds him/herself caught up in the drama and excitement of the hunt, filled with dread as the situation looks hopeless, aghast at the suffering, and finally, contemplative of the decisions made.

There are no easy answers to the questions raised by this book. Instead, the drama offers a chance to consider and reconsider the drive of survival and the human spirit. Narratives of life and death situations are almost inherently gripping; however, because of Philbrick's skills as a writer, this book does more than entertain--it provokes thought, raising issues that do not end with the final page.

Riveting account of little-known disaster, June 20, 2000
I would recommend without reservation this audio book abridgement of THE HEART OF THE SEA. Anyone who has an interest in suvival stories, or sea yarns would love this one. The tragedy of the Nantucket whaleship Essex was the inspiration for Herman Melville's MOBY DICK. The Essex was destroyed by a whale who, to the awe of the crew, seemed to have malignant intent. The crew was set adrift in the Pacific in small whaleboats with few provisions and little water---resulting in cannibalism and the drawing of lots ending in the death of one crew member.

The portraits of the Essex captain and first mate are particularly well drawn and distinctive for an abridged version, as well as the effects of starvation and dehydration. Unlike MOBY DICK, this abridgement gives just enough information on the whaling industry to be interesting, and focuses on the human dimension of the story. The listener has to wonder whether he or she could behave as well as these men did under equally desperate circumstances.

Edward Herrmann's reading of the book was excellent with one persistent mispronunciation of the name "Bowditch" being the one jarring note. I guess no one associated with the production had ever been sailing!

Tragic Epic, May 16, 2000
I thought this book was a fairly good account of the disaster that took place on the Essex. It was lacking in detail in a few places, but was adequately informative in others. This book was an easy and quick read, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about real-life adventures.

True Adventure of Castaways Battling Nature and Themselves, June 26, 2000
"In the Heart of the Sea" is a very good book. Like "The Perfect Storm", to which it will obviously be compared to, the author balances the story with historic and scientific background information. The combination works very well, informing the reader with fascinating tidbits while leaving him or her gripped in the thralls of a great tale.

This is the story of the whaleship Essex, out of Nantucket on a two year voyage to the Pacific in search of the early nineteenth century's liquid gold, whale oil. The unthinkable happens. A usually docile sperm whale, although large enough to sink a wooden ship, does just that. Rammed twice by an 85 foot leviathan of the sea, the crew takes to three whale boats while its ship is crushed and rendered useless. The resulting ninety day journey is a story of hope, discipline, tragic mistakes, and ever present thirst and starvation which leads the men ever closer to having to execute the "law of the sea" in order to survive.

Nathaniel Philbrick weaves first person accounts from survivors, a concise history of Nantucket and the work of catching and rendering whales as well as the physiology of the giant sea mammels and starvation into a first rate book. I read this over three days -- it moves very quickly. The author has a talent for fleshing out his common whalemen so that they are interesting and distinct characters without sacrificing authenticity and fact.

If you liked "The Perfect Storm" or Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air," you'll find "In the Heart of the Sea" very much in the same vein. A story of people under terrible physical and mental assault which the reader could not imagine enduring, coupled with a superbly explained telling of the issues at hand that is well set in its place and time.

Highly recommended -- you may want to finish this one all at once.

Gripping, Nail-biting, Page-Turner of a Book!, October 29, 2000
Nathaniel Philbrick has created a carefully researched and highly-detailed account of this great tragedy on the high sea for the modern day reader. Being one of the few persons I suppose who had never read or heard about the tragedy of the Essex and having not read Moby Dick either, I was captivated not by the style of writing here, but by the positively compelling events of this voyage which grew increasingly more horrific with each new chapter. It is without a doubt a gripping, nail-biting, page-turner of a book which always brings the reader back to the same gnawing question..."If I was in this situation, would have done the same things these men did?" The answer which each reader must supply to that question is what makes the book so effective.

Exemplary Story Telling, May 25, 2000
Having never read "Moby Dick", I wondered if this book could hold my interest. Boy, was I wrong! A masterful work of historical narrative that ranks right up there with "A Perfect Storm" and "Into Thin Air", I was spellbound by the story of The Essex and the plight of her crew...highly recommended regardless of your nautical prowess!

Engrossing, enjoyable, easy read, June 13, 2000
Wonderful book, really entertaining and edifying. I didn't know much about sailing or whaling but found the book very informative and accessible. Truth IS stranger than fiction. Philbrick didn't need to spin yarns around this story. He beautifully stuck to the accountable facts and put it in a very enjoyable format, well researched. Highly recommended. My only negative is that I felt that I wanted more depth and information at the end--more about the impact of whaling, more about whales and especially more about the emotional lives of the men who hunted them. Oddly, that's what makes this story fascinating--the "why" behind everyone's behavior! ... Read more

Editorial Review

The stirring story of the seventeenth-century pirates of the Mediterranean-the forerunners of today's bandits of the seas-and how their conquests shaped the clash between Christianity and Islam.

It's easy to think of piracy as a romantic way of life long gone-if not for today's frightening headlines of robbery and kidnapping on the high seas. Pirates have existed since the invention of commerce itself, but they reached the zenith of their power during the 1600s, when the Mediterranean was the crossroads of the world and pirates were the scourge of Europe and the glory of Islam. They attacked ships, enslaved crews, plundered cargoes, enraged governments, and swayed empires, wreaking havoc from Gibraltar to the Holy Land and beyond.

Historian and author Adrian Tinniswood brings alive this dynamic chapter in history, where clashes between pirates of the East-Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli-and governments of the West-England, France, Spain, and Venice-grew increasingly intense and dangerous. In vivid detail, Tinniswood recounts the brutal struggles, glorious triumphs, and enduring personalities of the pirates of the Barbary Coast, and how their maneuverings between the Muslim empires and Christian Europe shed light on the religious and moral battles that still rage today.

As Tinniswood notes in Pirates of Barbary, "Pirates are history." In this fascinating and entertaining book, he reveals that the history of piracy is also the history that shaped our modern world. ... Read more

Reviews

The Pirate Menace Then, November 13, 2010
We like historical pirates. We like them jolly; they make for a dandy ride at Disneyland, for instance, which has resulted in the films in which the unforgettable Jack Sparrow swashbuckles; before him, there was Captain Blood, and plenty of others. They were all rollicking fellows that might be good companions with whom to share a flask of rum and to sing sea shanties, and they might even pull off robbing a merchantman with enough panache that you would forgive them such a peccadillo. Probably the real pirates of centuries ago were less cuddly, and certainly the ones who continue to make headlines from Somalia have nothing in common with our image of Errol Flynn. We pick our media pirates from the Caribbean; the current ones from the Muslim countries in Africa are no fun. Those pirates weren't any fun three or four centuries ago, either. Adrian Tinniswood, who has written many books on diverse historical themes, was researching his current one, _Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests, and Captivity in the 17th-Century Mediterranean_ (Riverhead Books) when he realized history was repeating itself: "As I wrote of how a handful of men using small boats, scaling ladders, and sheer nerve had managed to hold the world to ransom in the seventeenth century, I watched on TV as a handful of men using small boats, scaling ladders, and sheer nerve were managing to hold the world to ransom in the twenty-first." As I write this, there are new pirate outrages, and whatever solutions the world is trying are failing. Tinniswood is writing about pirates in the past, and he mentions but does not dwell on the solution that previous centuries found for the problem: "... the long term solution to the problem lies onshore, and it can be achieved only by making fundamental changes within a culture which regards piracy as a legitimate activity." Over centuries, the Barbary pirates were persuaded, often by force, to make such changes. The persuasion was bloody, frustrating, and at times wrongheaded, but its history is fascinating in itself, as well as having plenty of exciting episodes to make the book fun to read.

The maritime cities of Tunis, Tripoli, Sal�, and Algiers had economies dependent upon piracy. These pirates were plying a trade essential to their states; they were not the independent, self-interested, freewheeling and often democratic ships full of pirates we associate with the Caribbean. That Christians were being taken as slaves by Muslims was shocking to the European nations from which they came. It was also a shock that some of the sailors taken in this way were becoming pirates themselves. The biggest outrage of all, though, was that some of those slaves "turned Turk," converting to Islam and insulting English concepts of faith and homeland. There are several British pirates profiled here, including Henry Mainwaring, who took advantage of the amnesty extended to pirates by James I. He published _Discourse on the Beginnings, Practises and Suppression of Pirates_, in which ironically he criticized the practice of extending pardons to pirates. Mainwaring's expos� and advice earned the former pirate a knighthood. The pirate menace was so bad that in 1631 a fleet out of Algeria, under command of the fearful pirate Murad Ra�s (formerly the Dutchman Jan Janszoon) attacked the coastal village of Baltimore in County Cork, Ireland. Over a hundred villagers were abducted. They joined the ranks of perhaps a million Europeans who were made Barbary slaves. There was a popular literature from slaves who escaped, but escapes were rare. Wives would petition Parliament, and make nuisances of themselves, to get their Members of Parliament to do something to bring their captured husbands home by raising funds for ransoms. That was a popular concern, but Parliament was far more worried about damage that was being done to shipping and commerce. The British response was spotty, with punitive raids against Algiers or Tangier resulting in peace treaties that the pashas would eventually ignore. It wasn't until 1816 that an Anglo-Dutch fleet pounded Algiers into submission, effectively ending the era of the corsairs and ushering in colonialism.

Tinniswood's final chapter includes America's difficulties with the pirates. We declared independence in 1776, and may have benefited thereby, but not in our dealings with the African corsairs. Any protection from treaties and safe conduct passes in effect between Britain and the pirates suddenly didn't apply to the prospectively independent Americans. When the American Revolution was over and won, the Continental Congress, so pestered by the pirates, asked England to help negotiate a truce with them, but England declined to do so. John Adams paid off the pirates, but his successor, Thomas Jefferson, thought this dishonorable. In 1801, Tripoli became the first nation to declare war on the United States, and eventually there was a treaty in 1805. America's war with the pirates wasn't completely over, and there continued to be skirmishes between the pirates and European nations, and eventually there were invasions (like the French into Algeria in 1830) that ended piracy completely. It took centuries to end that round of piracy emanating from north Africa. How long the current threat from the Horn of Africa will last can't be foretold; it will last as long as the pirates find more advantages than disadvantages in their ventures. No one is suggesting invading Somalia and colonizing it, so maybe the piracy will go on for centuries and someone will write a book like this one about its bloody history and the fumbling of victim nations to put an end to it. Tenniswood's book would be an excellent model, with its vivid pictures of sea combat, cunning pirates, mendacious deys, and centuries of cross-cultural misunderstanding.

A fascinating history of piracy, December 24, 2010
Piracy has probably existed since the early days of commerce. In the seventeenth century, it has become an integral part of European history. But who were the pirates? What were their aims?
These are only part of the issues researched and told in this fascinating book. As the author puts it, the stories which make up his book are "tales of bravery, brutality and betrayal, tales in which heroes and villains changed roles in the blink of an eye, like the characters in some Cold War spy novel".
The geographical area in which piracy took place was mainly the Mediterranean, where Muslim pirates attacked ships, enslaved crews, plundered cargoes and held numerous captives in their respective areas or countries. Barbary piracy became a very threatening phenomenon, but it would definitely be a mistake to assume that only Muslims were to blame for it. Christians engaged in this business as well. Business? Indeed, since piracy meant very good business for many parties which were involved it it. Circumstance, history, ideology, the opportunity to strike back, the thrill that can accompany an act of violence-all played their part in the creation of a corsair culture along the Barbary Coast. So did profit.
One should remember that the Barbary Coast was Islamic and those who fell victims were Christians, thus piracy can be regarded as another ground for the "clash of civilizations", because the pirates were considered to be sea-jihadists, while the Europeans looked at them as Islamic tyrannts.
In general, citizens of Catholic Europe who had the misfortune to be taken by pirates had more chance of getting home than their Protestant counterparts, because there was more contact between Barbary and the Catholic nations bordering the Mediterranean.
Mr. Tinniswood brings many stories about pirates, diplomats, kings, rescuers, galleons, and their respective places in those days. King James the First issued a pardon to those subjects of his who were once pirates. One of them, Henry Mainwaring was even elected to Parliament.
Estimates of the numbers of European captives in Barbary varied wildly from one observer to the other. In 1636 one gentleman reckoned that 32000 were being held in Tunis and Algiers, while another one, Francis Knight, put the number "of Christians groaning under the yoke of Turkish tyranny in Algiers alone at nearly twice that number".
The US Navy was responsible for putting an end to piracy at the beginning of the nineteenth century,because-and contrary to the European Weltanschauung-the Americans almost did not negotiate with the corsairs, buccaneers, you name them. The most famous of them, Hamidou Rais,an Algerian who had been celebrated as the master of the seas, was killed and his "broken body was thrown into the sea to save it from being defiled by the infidels". Thus, the world of piracy was coming to its end.
But not exactly, because Mr. Tinniswood is reminding us about today's Somali coast pirates who are still very active along the very long Somalian coast. He also cautions us to be extremely careful to separate fact from fiction or any Romantic notions attached to the pirates.
This books is deeply and seriously researched and is one of the best in this field. It is political and social history at its best.
... Read more

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum holds the country's premier collection of historic aircrafts, but visitors must view these impressive structures at a distance.

IN THE COCKPIT captures the feeling of helming these historic craft with big, gorgeous four–color photographs that will give flight enthusiasts a true pilot's eye view of many of history's most important domestic and military airplanes, jets, and helicopters. Each entry includes archival images of the craft and authoritative text that places each one in the context of the development of aviation technology and world history

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Reviews

Excellent work!, May 2, 2007
This book is beautiful! I saw it at Borders today. Even if you are not interested in cockpits you should pick up this book. Cockpits are interesting and these are some of the most famous aircraft of all time.

BEAUTIFUL photography. In addition to the photos I really enjoyed the nostalgic look and feel to the book. A very cool book indeed by two of the world's best aircraft photographers. No wonder they work at the Smithsonian...

David Palermo

can you imagine yourself flying a plane?, March 5, 2009
There are some wonderful flight sims out there. You can sit at your PC and fly all sorts of aircraft. Not too bad, huh? With most of these sims you can see the controls. Sometimes the controls are rendered quite faithfully, at other times you get a generic rendition. In this book, however, you'll find that other than for WW I craft, interiors get very complex indeed.

50 aircraft interiors are covered here--lots of well-done full-color photographs. With the Halberstadt CL IV in 1917 you get a spartan cockpit--about a half-dozen gauges and a handful of switches and levers. It shouldn't be too hard remembering which is which. Taking off, flying, and landing, well, that's different. The 1937 Piper Cub--still quite simple. The 1927 Lockheed Vega--maybe 15 gauges, and 20 levers. The Hurricane of WW II begins to look quite a bit more intimidating: the Corsair takes another jump in complexity. The MIG-15 begins to look despairingly difficult (yet pilots regularly flew it). The Concorde looks as if it might require its own 250-page section in a flight sim manual. Leave the actual flying to others--while you browse this delightful book!

Wonderful, Informative Book, January 21, 2010
I purchased this book for my husband for Christmas and he has thoroughly enjoyed the book. He is a former pilot (retired) so he had a "built-in" interest. There were so many cockpits he had not seen and he enjoyed seeing and reading about each. I highly recommend this book for anyone with a pilot in their family.

Xmas Present, January 8, 2010
Beautiful book. The cover looks like leather, the book's quality reminds you of an antique book. The photographs are excellent and extremely detailed. I purchased it for a nephew who is really into WWII plains, trains and ships. For a historical aircraft lover it's a perfect gift. I only read a page or two, so I can not comment on the writing, but I believe the real beauty is in the photographs. Even someone who has little interst in aircraft found the pictures compelling.

Great for modelers, January 30, 2010
Being hung up on internal details I really liked this book. It is a treasure trove for cockpit color data. Favorites are the He 219 Ki-45, Ju 388 and FJ-1. Ideal for modelers and armchair aeronuts.

Great Book-beautifully photographed!, February 8, 2008
Gave this as a gift to my pilot father and he loved it. Perfect choice for anyone who aprreciates these aircraft. Great pictures and cover design!

Great Christmas Gift, October 19, 2009
This will be a perfect gift for my son, who loves aviation and history. The book, itself, is very attractively done, definitely one to keep. I skimmed through it, and know my son will be interested in all the information it provides.

Just an alert to some marketing hype., May 23, 2007
The book looks interesting and the concept is solid. If you're into flying and especially old planes this glimpse into so many cockpits should prove of more than passing interest. That said, it's a sign of the times that even the Smithsonian Institute would stoop to some dubious marketing. If you enlarge the cover photo you'll see that John Tavolta's name is in large print just below the title. Indeed Mr. Travolta did write the forward, all five sentences of it. Literally, five generic sentences that offer nothing more than cover tease to snag some buyer interest. If you do buy the book at least lend it to those who only have a mild interest and let the Smithsonian know that they should have more integrity than promoting products with cheap celebrity hype. Since comments here must be accompanied by a rating, I'll leave it at 3 as a neutral comment.

MY STEP_BROTHER_IN LAW Loved this book, December 17, 2008
My sister told me her husband couldnt put the book down ... He is an aviator and loves the rich history nthis book intails. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The undisputed favorite of boating enthusiasts. Top yachting photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz always delivers outstanding full-color images of beautiful wooden boats. Marine historian Maynard Bray provides informative and entertaining captions. ... Read more

Reviews

Wooden Boat Glamour Photos, November 1, 2010
I have for the last several years purchased multiple copies of this beautiful calendar. Ben Mendlowitz's photos with Manard Bray's comments make this an excellent Christmas present. The photos capture the simple beauty and sculpture exhibited in the craftmans' art. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The captivating story of the titans, engineers, and pilots who raced to design a safe and lucrative passenger jet.

In Jet Age, journalist Sam Howe Verhovek explores the advent of the first generation of jet airliners and the people who designed, built, and flew them. The path to jet travel was triumphal and amazingly rapid-less than fifty years after the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, Great Britain led the world with the first commercial jet plane service. Yet the pioneering British Comet was cursed with a tragic, mysterious flaw, and an upstart Seattle company put a new competitor in the sky: the Boeing 707 Jet Stratoliner. Jet Age vividly recreates the race between two nations, two global airlines, and two rival teams of brilliant engineers for bragging rights to the first jet service across the Atlantic Ocean in 1958.
At the center of this story are great minds and courageous souls, including Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, who spearheaded the development of the Comet, even as two of his sons lost their lives flying earlier models of his aircraft; Sir Arnold Hall, the brilliant British aerodynamicist tasked with uncovering the Comet's fatal flaw; Bill Allen, Boeing's deceptively mild-mannered president; and Alvin "Tex" Johnston, Boeing's swashbuckling but supremely skilled test pilot. The extraordinary airplanes themselves emerge as characters in the drama. As the Comet and the Boeing 707 go head-to-head, flying twice as fast and high as the propeller planes that preceded them, the book captures the electrifying spirit of an era: the Jet Age.
In the spirit of Stephen Ambrose's Nothing Like It in the World, Verhovek's Jet Age offers a gorgeous rendering of an exciting age and fascinating technology that permanently changed our conception of distance and time, of a triumph of engineering and design, and of a company that took a huge gamble and won. ... Read more

Reviews

How global air travel changed forever with jet airplanes, October 16, 2010
If you are interested in the history of aviation and how jet transportation forever changed our world, this is the book to read...and even if you hadn't thought about it, check it out. Global air travel is now taken for granted and this book details the trials and tribulations of those who were in competition to shrink the globe by developing the first jet transport.

I took a bit different approach to reading the book, skipping to the end to read about the genesis of the book in the Epilogue. Author Sam Howe Verhovek has conducted extensive research on Boeing, de Havilland and the people who were the visionaries within those companies. He located great resources in libraries and company archives and crafted a history that is very readable. His writing skills allow the technical information on the 707 and the Comet to be interleaved with the personalities of the engneers, test pilots and executives in a way that personalizes the technical nature of the endeavor. The book is broken down into chapters that detail the efforts of both manufacturers, the aviators, the companies and the race itself, and each story is covered nicely.

There is a lot of entertainment packed into 272 pages, I highly recommend taking it along on your next flight to learn how people and planes forever changed our world.

Kent Lewis
Signal Charlie

Pretty light stuff, November 2, 2010
This book was interesting but not the book I hoped for.

I thought it was a book on how the management and engineering teams at de Haviland and Boeing addressed the technical and business problems of building the Comet and the 707, the first jet airliners. The author spent much more time on the Comet because of its fatal flaws than on the 707 and almost no time on any of the technical issues. More was written about jets in Star Trek than engineering the 707. There was far more about aviation between the World Wars than was necessary for the story and pages were taken up with the initiation of the stewardess service.

There was no clue why a military contractor was so successful in developing this innovative plane but has now become a byword for managerial incompetence.

There was not one word about how the huge challenges of designing reliable, efficient engines were addressed.

I am not an engineer or an aviation buff but this was pretty fluffy material even for me.

Build a better mousetrap . . . . ., October 19, 2010
Few books are this good; it is a masterful story by a former New York Times reporter who shows why it is one of the world's great newspapers -- a type of publication often referred to as the first rough draft of history.

But it misses intense spirit of 'The Soul of a New Machine' by Tracy Kidder, a classic description of the obsession to create a new product. Verhovek often hints at military research and contracts which seem to be basic research for the 707; any company that could build the B-29 and B-47 was surely poised to build an "aluminum tube" to carry passengers.

Instead, his focus is on efforts to build a jetliner. Competition included a last great gasp by a fast fading Britain, a blithely baffled Canadian leap of imagination (barely mentioned) which quickly failed in a truly clueless society, and the final brilliant success of Boeing which uniquely combined gutsy nerve, technology, markets, salesmanship and timing.

Why does Boeing succeed? As Verhovek explains, it is part of the soul of Seattle. Boeing creates pride in its products, plus pride in its employees and the city where they live. It is more than the sum of its parts, basically an American company that bends aluminum into useful shapes and attaches other parts to create a quality product. In addition, Boeing reflects the confidence of workers who are able to conceive and build "impossible" products for tomorrow's world.

As a former de Havilland Canada employee, I saw the pride in building the world's best STOL aircraft. DHC employees had pride in their work, Toronto was largely indifferent. Some projects DHC launched in the 1960s evolved into today's best commuter aircraft. Indifference doomed DHC, just as it killed the Avro C-102 jetliner which first flew in 1949. Avro vanished; the remnants of DHC were taken over by a snowmobile company which is an emerging competitor to Boeing and Airbus.

The secret is pride in the work, the product and knowing the market. As Verhovek shows, Boeing built jet bombers to fly half-way around the world, it applied this talent to commercial aviation, then assiduously courted and respected customers. It expanded the realm of leisure; instead of once-in-a-lifetime trips, Boeing gave people this easy ability to visit any part of the globe whenever they wish.

It's the story of all great successes. Make life better for people -- i.e. "build a better mousetrap" -- and the world will fly to your door. It applies to aircraft, newspapers, cups of coffee and books of this quality.

Read this and you'll get an insight into the culture of excellence in contrast to an "it's good enough" attitude. Seattle, shaped by Boeing, produced Starbucks, Seattle's Best, Filson, Microsoft and Amazon.com. Los Angeles area gave us McDonalds, Disney, reality TV and smog. But who wants a Mickey Mouse aircraft rather than a Boeing product?

Not Bad, but It Strays Pretty Far Afield, November 11, 2010
Book titles can be deceptive. You might expect Sam Howe Verhovek's "Jet Age: The Comet, the 707 and the Race to Shrink the World" to be about the rivalry between Britain's de Havilland and America's Boeing aircraft companies and the first-generation commercial jet airliners that each built in the early days of the Jet Age. You would be partly right. At least some of the book covers this subject. But much of it does not.

One of the forays beyond the subjects mentioned in the title includes quite a bit of coverage about the dawn of flight. We're talking the Wright brothers here, and Louis Bl�riot and the Zeppelin raids on London in World War I. Interesting aviation history, to be sure, but probably a little out of scope for a relatively short book dealing with the "jet age." There's also quite a bit of material about airlines' introductions of stewardesses in the early 1930s. Again, interesting, but not really relevant to the story of the Comet vs. the 707.

Really, there's very little about the 707 at all. In particular, while Mr. Verhovek relates the well-known tale of test pilot Tex Johnston performing two barrel rolls in the 707 prototype "Dash 80" in front of thousands of spectators over Lake Washington in 1955, he does not explain WHY the maneuver was, as Tex said, "absolutely nonhazardous." In fact, in a properly performed barrel roll--and Tex's maneuver would certainly have been skillfully performed--the load factor remains nearly constant and is virtually the same as the force (one G ceiling-to-floor) experienced in straight-and-level level flight. The airplane doesn't know that it's upside down!

Mr. Verhovek covers the Comet in much more detail than the 707, but still, despite a pretty extensive treatment, he stops short of telling specifically why three of the graceful aircraft disintegrated in flight. For the record, he correctly points out that the problem was due to metal fatigue from repeated pressurization cycles, but he does not finish the story by mentioning that the fatigue failures were a direct result of stress concentrations caused by the sharp corners of its windows, especially a navigation window on top of the fuselage. Oval windows, such as those Boeing used on the 707, minimize stress concentrations.

Still, despite these caveats, "Jet Age" is a decent, if somewhat superficial, look at some of the people and hardware that ushered in today's era of jet-powered commercial aircraft. It offers a pretty good summary of a very significant period in aviation history and a look at the converging technical, competitive and marketing forces that spurred the race between Britain and America to introduce the world's first jet transport. Even if you already know the story, you'll probably still enjoy reading it. If you don't know the story, I recommend giving "Jet Age" a try. It's sure to interest and enlighten you.

Interesting book..., October 31, 2010
but not particularly well-edited.

The main story, about the development the modern jet passenger, is pretty well done. Author Sam Howe Verhovek tells of the early development of jet planes by the UK's deHavilland and the US's Boeing, which resulted in the Comet in the early 1950's and the 707 in the late 1950's. He goes into the back story of each of the owners as well as peripheral figures at each company. He touches on others in the race for the jet, including the Canadians and the Russians. But editing is not done well. The story of the early crashes of the Comets is loosely put in and I felt in a confusing fashion. Verhovek begins his book with the Comet crashes and then leaves them out til almost the end.

The second part of the book - and much smaller than the first - was the story about early stewardesses. I don't know what the advent of stewardesses had to do with the development of the jet-age, as stewardesses were introduced in the early 1930's, twenty or so years before the jet planes began flying.

Verhovek's book is very disjointed. It almost feels as if it was rushed into print without any - or enough - editing. I found several grammatical errors in the text. I really hope someone edits this book in its next printing. Verhovek is a good writer and what he writes is interesting; I just wish it wasn't presented in such a haphazard fashion.

A Rambling But Entertaining Book, October 24, 2010
"Jet Age" is all the more enjoyable for being a book about many things besides jets. The central narrative about the competition between Britain and America is clear from the subtitle, "The Comet, the 707 and The Race to Shrink the World." The British were the first to test a commercial jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, in 1949. British Overseas Airway Corporation (BOAC) assigned the new aircraft to its Empire Service, and it began carrying paying passengers on regularly scheduled flights in May 1952. The American airline industry was satisfied with big, noisy, turbulent, uncomfortable propeller-driven aircraft--Boeing was the only manufacturer willing to bet the company on jet air travel, and its Dash 80 (the prototype of the famous 707) was years behind the Comet. The book is first and foremost about the race between de Havilland and Boeing, told from the perspective of national pride.

From there, the story branches out in myriad directions. A second narrative summarizes the life and achievements of Geoffrey de Havilland, who endured personal tragedy (including the deaths of two of his three sons in company aircraft) to lead Britain into the jet age. The Americans in the story include Bill Boeing, who founded the eponymous company but left the airline industry in disgust in 1934 when the Roosevelt Adminstration broke his company into an aircraft manufacturer (Boeing Company), an airline (Boeing Air Transport, now United Airlines), and an engine manufacturer (today's United Technologies); Bill Allen, who bet the company on the 707 and later on the even larger 747; Howard Hughes (TWA), Eddie Rickenbacker (Eastern), and Juan Trippe (Pan Am), the leaders of the airlines who would decide whether the 707, the Douglas DC-8, or the Comet won the race to become the dominant aircraft of the jet age; and Tex Johnston, the Boeing test pilot and salesman-in-chief who famously barrel-rolled the Dash 80--twice--in a demonstration flight above Lake Washington in Seattle.

The Comet was first out of the gate but turned out to be an aircraft too far ahead of its time--a fatal structural flaw caused by metal fatigure sometimes without warning caused the jetliner to disentegrate in the upper atmosphere, leading in 1952-53 to three mysterious high-altitude disasters that killed over 100 people. Part of Verhovek's story is about how the British swallowed their considerable national pride, grounded the Comet, and figured out what had gone wrong. Boeing learned from these tragic lessons and designed the 707 with a fuselage able to withstand a "guillotine test" without shredding.

To tell the story of the "race to shrink the world," Verhovek disgresses to a number of interesting subtopics, including Boeing's invention of "the stewardess," (who was at first required to be an unmarried registered nurse), the first encounter between a British Mosquito and Germany's Me262 jet fighter near the end of World War II, the establishment of the American air mail industry, and the growth of commercial airlines in the United States in the 1930s.

It's clear that Verhovek has a lot of passion for his subject and has taken the time to master its many interesting facets--it's as if Simon Winchester decided that he wanted to write about the aircraft. The result is a very readable book that I highly recommend.

If you enjoy Verhovek's story of how our modern jet airline industry came to be, you might want to have a look at Jay Spenser's The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings.

Not enough material, November 23, 2010
As another review pointed out, this book was not at all what I expected from the title and initial reviews. Full of obvious filler, as if there was a price per word being paid, there is a disappointing lack of substance. Now I'll admit to being an aviation fan, but there is nothing on the design, testing, development of the planes involved. Little of the engineering and intrigue that had to accompany all the projects involved in actually building the machines is covered. Most of the book is focused on back story, with several cases of same tidbits being presented in different chapters (filler?). It is as if the Comet and 707 simply appeared, fully built, and there isn't anything worth covering in HOW they came to be.

If you are looking for a disposable read, mainly focused on people, then OK.

If you want real info on the planes, how they came to be, and the real impact they had then well, I'm not sure where to go, but it isn't this book. Sigh.....

Jet Age, November 11, 2010
Really not much more than a rehash of previously published material. I was disappointed that there was so little detail offered regarding the Comet's metal fatigue problems. However, for those readers who are seeking just a recap of the subject matter, this should suffice.

Eh, it was interesting, November 20, 2010
I was really enjoying the book at first, and was eager to read past the sample portion. The initial setup of the story and the promise of a grand sweeping narative that would really show u how the jet age changed the world was very enticing. The book failed, in my opinion, to deliver. First off, this book is very short, with the epilogue arriving at the 73% mark and a non linked index taking up 17% of the remaining space. The book ended abruptly, sort of a "thats all folks" type ending. I felt that the book failed to deliver on romises made earlier in the book.

It was interesting, but I feel it failed to deliver the larger story. ... Read more

Editorial Review

It's every motorcyclist's dream.A friend or acquaintance says, "You know, there's an old bike that's been sitting in this garage for years."The hunt is on.And rather than the usual worthless Hondazukimaha pile of hopeless oxidation, at the back of that barn you find a genuine classic, the motorcycle collector's dream.

The Vincent in the Barn tells forty such stories--tales of motorcycle hunting dreams come true.From Ducatis in basements to Vincents abandoned in sheds, Harleys in barns to Brit bikes moldering behind urban garages, these are the stories that fuel every motorcyclist's fantasies.The only difference?They're true. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Like the other guy said, "its a FARAIM" what do you expect, December 22, 2010
I bought the FARAIM 2011, after using the 2009 before it.
Its a just a new edition, a few new items here and there,
the one notable thing that caught my eye was the more use of color in the AIM.

Its a good book for any pilot in the USA
The AIM is also a good for any other ICAO pilot

FAR/AIM 2011, November 2, 2010
A standard government information manual that provides the most up to date information for domestic flying. It's OK.

not sent it yet !!!, November 7, 2010
i ordered this item on internet and i didn't get it yet !!!
why???
i paied it !!! ... Read more

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

Transit Maps of the World is the first and only comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth. Using glorious, colorful graphics, Mark Ovenden traces the history of mass transit-including rare and historic maps, diagrams, and photographs, some available for the first time since their original publication. Transit Maps is the graphic designer's new bible, the transport enthusiast's dream collection, and a coffee-table essential for everyone who's ever traveled in a city. ... Read more

Reviews

a real treasure!, November 21, 2007
If you're like me, and enjoy poring over maps, you'll find this book a treat. If all the book had were reproductions of current urban rail maps, it would be worth at least 4 stars. But there's much more. There is a short history of urban rail from its earliest days, and then you have maps and text for about 200 cities around the world. You get narratives on the history of each system, but the emphasis is on the evolution of the transit maps themselves. For some cities, up to about 20 maps are reproduced, and some of these date back to the 19th century. There's a wonderful sense of the conflict between having maps that are aesthetically pleasing and maps that are pleasing to someone trying to find their way around.

The book is divided into 6 zones (rather than chapters), with the distinction based primarily on the evolution of the maps:
zone 1: 8 cities, 4 pages per city. Example: Paris, 17 maps dating back to 1900.
zone 2: 15 cities, 2 pages per city. Example: Boston, 5 maps dating back to 1926.
zone 3: 28 cities, 1 page per city. Amsterdam, 4 maps.
zone 4: 16 cities, 2 cities per page, usually 1-2 maps per city.
zone 5: 18 cities, 1-3 cities per page, mostly 1 map per city.
zone 6: 140? cities, about 12 cities per page, often without maps, very short narratives.

The one problem you'll have is that many of the original maps were very large, and so when the transit map of Greater New York is faithfully reduced to two-thirds of a page in the book, you'll either need remarkable eyesight or a very strong magnifying glass to make out details. But the book is not intended as a catch-all way to actually find your way around, but rather as a paean to maps--you're intended to enjoy looking at the maps, not using them for transit purposes. A real delight!

Beck and all, November 19, 2007
A timely update to the first edition in 2003 with a new Zone: 6, listing all the latest and proposed subway systems around the globe. This extra Zone now includes hybrids like tram-trains, monorail or light rail and they all need maps. The other five Zones in the original have had their contents revised also.

I think the beauty of the book is in looking at the way various transit companies have approached the problem of communicating (sometimes complex) information in a simple way for passengers yet each map has its unique points. The book's authors rightly trace the origins of the modern designed transit map to London Transport's Harry Beck. His genius was to discard the geographic location of stations and have route lines as either vertical, horizontal or at forty-five degrees. It's amazing to see how many maps of the dozens in the book still follow this general principal.

However, creating a map that might look graphically stunning is not always enough. New York's MTA got Massimo Vignelli to design their map and it looks a visual treat but passengers weren't impressed and found it confusing so the MTA revised it. Vignelli's 1979 map and the latest 2007 MTA one are shown together on a spread in the book, two maps with the same information yet looking so different.

This update has a few more train and station photos to fill the space that was frequently left blank in the first edition and there is a nice touch with a spread near the back that includes some fantasy maps. If I have a fault with the book it is that in the new Zone 6 section many of the maps are so small that I don't think they were worth including.

I thinks it's worth pointing out that Transit Maps is not designed as a reference guide for travelers to cities around the world but as a celebration of the beauty that is inherent in these colorful diagrams.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Comments from a transit fan and a map lover, December 1, 2007
As you can tell from the title, I was drawn to this book from two of my interests. This book is great! It gives samples of current and historical maps from transit systems all over the world, and it is a treat to look at. I have only two minor faults to find -- not enough to detract from the 5-star rating: 1. some of the maps are reproduced too small (I wish he had made the 1911 Brooklyn elevated map full page size, for example) or too dark (a Chicago transit map from the late 1940s is very hard to read) and 2. (very much my own personal taste) I wish he had included some historical maps from Philadelphia (he only has a current map of that city, one of my favorites).

One thing that does seem a bit strange: Although it is no surprise that the author, a native of London, writes in British English, it is rather odd that he seems to find it necessary to translate the *names* of American transit companies into British English, changing "transportation" to "transport" and "railroad" to "railway." Most people would, I think, leave the official names alone!

I hope the author reads this comment so he might be able to take it into account if he comes out with a revised edition -- I know this one has already been revised from the original.

Love it!, November 19, 2007
If you are a fan of rail transit systems, cartography, or functional graphic design, then this book is for you. It contains very up to date images of all of the greatest transit maps in the world. It also provides quite a bit of historical insight for the larger systems. The only thing I thing that would improve this book is if it were in a larger format. Then you could actually appreciate the maps even more. Considering some of the maps illustated are diplayed 6 feet high on subway station walls, any extra size bigger they could print this book, the better.

Finally - the search is over!, December 11, 2007
If you are a fan of maps, subway culture, city life, and mass transit (these things tend to hang together, I suspect), then this book is it! Jackpot! I have been searching for a book with this breadth and depth for nearly a decade, ever since I read the incomparable "Subway City" by Michael W. Brooks. Trust me, if you think diagrams, logos, and maps can be beautiful AND thought-provoking, then know that this is THE book to get.

Let me add a few other thoughts in addition to what other reviewers have already said. First, this book is a good example of why books still matter... that is, I have been searching the Internet for years collecting jpegs and pdf files of the various transit systems of the world; I've ordered transit maps and guides from various cities on ebay... BUT, here is all of it in one place! In this sense, the authors have provided a great service by bringing order to a chaotic jumble of information on the Internet.

The other piece I'll add is that this book (as all good books should be) is a mind-opener. As I've said, I've been interested in this very subject for years, but I never imagined there were THIS MANY subway systems in the world! Wow! How could I have known - I didn't have this book!

Dream fulfilled!, June 23, 2008
This book fulfills one of my top dreams -- to be more exact, I could not have dreamed of such a book! Reading maps and riding subways have been two of my favorite hobbies, and it is definitely awesome to see more than 200 cities' urban transit maps juxtaposed and compared in one book. Even better, the author gives detailed introduction to the history and includes many interesting anecdotes of those storied urban transit systems such as Berlin, Chicago, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, and Tokyo. I use this book to remind my boy about the cities and places we ever visited, and teach him how to use a transit map to quickly find a route to any destination. We have been enjoying it so far, and I believe lots of fun will continue to flow out from it.

Great Book, January 10, 2009
I bought this book for my son who is autistic. He is fascinated by trains, subways, trollies, and buses. He loves to look at the maps of various transit systems and memorizes the portions of the systems he would like to ride on. This was absolutely the perfect gift for him.

Impressive Collection of Subway Maps Smartly Organized and with Illuminating Context, April 25, 2008
I took one look at the evolution of the BART maps in the two pages devoted to San Francisco's transit system and knew I had to purchase this soft-cover coffee-table book. A writer with an obvious passion for cartography, Mark Ovenden has put together a most intriguing and idiosyncratic design history book examining the maps that depict the world's transit systems. This is not an in-depth book for urban planners or for anyone interested in the workings of a transit system for that matter. Rather, it looks specifically at how transit system maps have been designed to meet the needs of commuters and travelers alike. For travelers especially, these maps often represent the first impression of the geographic breadth of a city. Instead of organizing the maps in alphabetical order of the nearly one hundred cities included, Ovenden cleverly breaks down the maps into six zones. On one end is Zone 1, which covers the eight most elaborate metropolitan systems, all with extensive histories and maps that evolved in style over time.

Particularly fascinating is the evolution of the New York subway from the intricate 1905 map that places Manhattan on its side to the nearly unreadable 1948 version to the austere, straight-angle design by Massimo Vignelli in 1972 to the current version that attempts to minimize the inevitable clutter. The other Zone 1 cities are predictably Berlin, Chicago, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris and Tokyo. On the other end of the spectrum, Zone 6 itemizes maps for relatively new systems or those still in development. Thumbnail maps are provided for these cases. In between the two zones are cities with subway maps that look surprisingly similar in their diagrammatical design, a likely intentional decision based on usability ease. Consequently, Ovenden gives good reason for not making topographical accuracy a top priority. Maps become unwieldy and inevitably more difficult to read in a hurry. He supports this reasoning by lucidly sharing key aspects of urban transportation history that have culminated into a general preference for the angular, Beck-style diagrams. Map enthusiasts will find this all quite enthralling.

An essential reference for urban rail enthusiasts, November 21, 2007
"Transit maps of the world" by Mark Ovenden.

This unique atlas contains at least one map of every urban "mass transit" system in the world. That includes heavy rail (subways/metros), light rail, elevated rail, monorail, and even some streetcars, trams and trolleys. Suburban/commuter rail is included only for a few large cities that have no subways.

Most of the maps come from official sources. For the more important networks there are both modern and historical maps. For each city there is a broad description of the network and the metropolitan area served. But the emphasis is as much on the widely varying designs of the maps as on the transit systems that they represent. Most are diagrammatic, using straight lines rather than geographically scaled curves.

Five Stars - Super! But hear out my nit picking., December 21, 2008
I'm not going to echo what countless others have said about this book. It's five stars all the way and a joy doubtlessly not just to those of us who share the author's perverse fascination with transit maps but also to a somewhat wider ken. In short, if you've made it this far and are for whatever reason curious about this book or wondering if it's for you, just GET IT. You'll be glad you did.

That said, like a true pedant, I'm going to harp upon some things that I think could have been improved. This is all nitpicking nonsense. I'm telling you that it's nitpicking nonsense, so don't yell at me for nitpicking since you've been warned in advance that picking nits is exactly what I'm about to do.

Basically, the British author has in his mind that the epitome of metro diagrams is Harry Beck's london underground and its subsequent improvements. Yes, it's an excellent diagram and system and a key touchstone (perhaps the key artifact) in metro mapping. However, to judge everything else against this standard often misses the point and negates contributions from other areas.

For example, the author rather perversely notes/compares the Seoul map to London's while apparently being blissfully unaware of the obvious Tokyo influence on the Seoul map. Indeed, the author's familiarity with Asia seems to be very thin - the examples chosen for Tokyo are particularly poor and in many ways atypical (I cringed when I saw the short lived "oedo-line-circle-centered" map included in the book). There are far better Tokyo metro/transit diagrams in wide circulation with far more interesting features that would have been of interest in the book. Amazingly, the author goes out of his way to berate a Tokyo chart which shows stair location in stations, even though as every Tokyo residents know, location of such is vital to making the most of your commute. London Underground, arguably, despite its history, the worst major metro in the world, would have a LOT to learn from Tokyo if it only had the sense to stop navel-gazing (and yes, I live in England).

Next, some monumentally interesting maps are not included. The author seems to know a bit about the Moscow Metro and gushes about it enthusiastically. While the Moscow metro has heavy use, it badly fails its users - its monumental station entrances, while architecturally interesting-ish, wastes commuters time.. so much so that I think the author could have done better than to gush as he did. However, beyond that, I'm in shock and awe that the author could apparently know so much about the Moscow metro and yet he couldn't be bother to include a diagram of the (admittedly speculative) "Metro 2" in there. "Metro 2" (look it up in wikipedia if unfamiliar) is a fascinating story, and its diagram would have fit perfectly in the book, regardless of whether it exists.

Pyongyang's metro deserved far better treatment than it got in the book. I know the author had to pick snd choose, but this one and its maps and associated stories are far more interesting than some of the more routine ones that got more coverage. That said, given that the author doesnt seem to have any particular knowledge of Asian metros, maybe this is not a bad thing (though look me up for version 2 and maybe we can improve the asian metro coverage!)

Finally, the author pays too much homage to the idea of "pure" metro systems because of his pro-London Underground biases. Of course, my views are contrastingly biased with the fact that I think the Underground is horrible. A "pure" metro by the standard of the book and apparently certain transport enthusiasts, is one that is self-contained (by which i mean no particular links to other systems), is (ideally) entirely underground, and doesn't use interoperable rolling stock and equipment. In other words, the "pure" metro is the london underground system with its claustrophobic cars and decrepid stations. It takes a good ten to fifteen minutes to get from a east coast mainline train at king's cross station to an ammoniac-steched underground train at the same station. What, ideal, exactly, are we celebrating here?

By comparison, it takes no time to get from, say, the Odakyu, Keio, and many other rail operators in Tokyo to that city's metro because of smartly designed inter-running. This is what should be celebrated - not some arbitrary aesthetic of a "pure" metro that just happens to be well exemplified by the author's favourite london system.

Ok. Enough carping. It's an excellent book. And actually, this is a true story--I was reading it while flying first class on an airliner for a four or five hour flight accross america. The title of the book is prominent and I, being a true connissur, would spend several minutes looking at most of the maps. The flight attendant was convinced that I was reading it because I had nothing else to read. Repeatedly he brought / suggested to me several magazines that he had on offer. Finally, I had to explain to him that I actually liked the book and I wasn't reading it at a glacial pace just because I was bored. He didn't get it.

I suspect you will, however, if you've made it this far in my review. Highly recommended.


... Read more

Editorial Review

Impressive illustrations dramatically portray events leading up to and including the sinking of the "unsinkable" White Star liner. Descriptive captions accompany 29 realistic drawings of the Titanic at dock in Southhampton, England; passengers dining, strolling on deck, and relaxing in the elegant first class lounge; the ship striking the iceberg; passengers jumping into the water; survivors huddled in lifeboats, more.
... Read more

Reviews

Titanic Coloring Book, August 12, 2006
Titanic coloring book is great for kids. The book is great because the wonderful pages of art are masterpieces when you color them, there also great for tracing too or helping you draw your own titanic picture. The book i say is for all ages,yes including you grandpa.
THE BOOK IS JUST FUN!!!!!!

Perfect for the Titanic fan in all of us, March 9, 2006
My 5-year-old son is infatuated with the Titanic! This was the perfect and age-appropriate gift for him. He had the whole book colored in about three days, but I must admit, I colored some with him - and enjoyed it! The illustrations are superb and the text is also good! Chock-full of interesting facts.

Great for a child that is really interested in the history of the Titanic, January 9, 2009
You may have seen my reviews of the Titanic toy for the tub - naturally, I had to have the coloring book too! (You can't imagine how SHOCKED I was to find a coloring book about the Titanic?!?!). My 6 year old is TOTALLY OBSESSED with the history of the Titanic. He can't get enough! We got this coloring book for Christmas and he was astounded! I think he thinks it was custom made for him since we never find anything "Titanic" at Toys R Us or any other "toy store". I will tell you that it does not "sugar coat" the events of that tragic night. If your child reads well (and mine does), then you may want to consider how much he/she is ready to know about the events of that night. Its a very historic & detailed narration of the event. If you're a teacher and you are teaching about the Titanic, this is a great tool. My son LOVES it and I highly recommend it for the young Titanic enthusiasts out there, but you may want to read through it first and be your own judge.

LOVE IT!, August 9, 2008
My son is really into Titanic and we both had a great time coloring all of the beautiful pictures in this book! This to me is a MUST BUY if you have a little one who loves Titanic. Heck, as an adult I love this.

A happy 6-year-old, February 12, 2010
I bought this as a gift for my 6-year-old grandson who loves everything Titanic (at the moment!) He loves having someone read him the captions under each of the pictures. He spent many a happy hour coloring those pcitures, too. It was one of his favorite Christmas gifts. It proved very age-appropriate.

book, January 30, 2010
my grandson love the Titanic and all that goes with it so this was a hit with him.

A coloring book and much more, March 26, 2009
I bought it for a grandson who had many questions about the large ship..It was well done....nana

Great coloring book for older kids, January 11, 2009
I bought this book for my mother at christmas and she loves it. It would be a great gift to any one who is a fan of titanic. the pictures are well drawn and cover many aspects of the ship. My only negative comment would be that it is not a book for young children. the pictures in the back of the book while they do portray the disaster well it is a little to real. You have the ability to color bodies falling off the boat as well as dead bodies floating in the water. aslo in one picture you have the chance to color a man clining to a life boat floating in the water. I would getthis book again but would not suggest you get it for any one under the age of 12. ... Read more

Editorial Review

From the early pioneers to the latest spaceflight technology, this groundbreaking book charts the inspirational story behind humankind's conquest of the skies. ... Read more

Editorial Review

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! ... Read more

Reviews

The Divided Heart, March 8, 2002
No less a writer than Ernest Hemingway said about West with the Night, "As it is she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pigpen. But she can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers." Coming from an author who was renowned for his ego and lack of respect for other writers, this is high praise indeed, and West with the Night deserves it.

The story opens with the author being called in the middle of the night to deliver a tank of oxygen to a dying man. The reason she has been called is because her business is flying a small bi-plane through the wilds of Africa on delivery errands such as these. The flight and subsequent visit with the dying man and his doctor are used to introduce us to Africa - the rich black nights, the stories of her native peoples, the harsh reminder with the appearance of a jackal that "...in Africa there is never any waste."

In this first section we also begin to know and wonder about the author, a native of Britain who was transplanted to African soil at the age of 2 and raised by her father on his farm at Njoro. There her primary playmates were the children of the Nandi Murani tribe and her principle schoolroom the African landscape itself. As Markham puts it, "Africa was the breath and life of my childhood. It is still the host of all my darkest fears, the cradle of mysteries always intriguing, but never wholly solved. It is the remembrance of sunlight and green hills, cool water and the yellow warmth of bright mornings. It is as ruthless as any sea, more uncompromising than its own deserts. It is without temperance in its harshness or in its favors. It yields nothing, offering much to men of all races."

It is Markham's misfortune, but also her gift, that she could never be fully assimilated by the native people and the landscape. Her father insisted on sending her to school, relatives and friends did their best to expose her to European culture, and in the end Africa itself conspired to force her out of the fold and into the larger world. The end result is a woman who walks a fine and complex line within herself between two radically different perceptions of the world.

Although Markham's story is remarkable based on facts alone - taking us from her childhood haunts to her historic flight across the Atlantic Ocean - it is the elegance and depth of the writing that sets this book apart. When she talks about the horses she and her father bred and raised, for example, it's as if she is stepping into the animals' skins. When she discusses her hunt for a fellow pilot, lost in the bush, it is with total absorption in the moment. This is the kind of book that can make you forget you are reading a book, drawing you into the subtleties of life as Markham knew it - engaging all the senses and ultimately your heart as well.

Absolutly spellbinding--it is a plane ride to another world, August 30, 1998
I visited Kenya last year and saw this book all over the shelves, and I picked it up. Little did I know, I was picking up one of the best written and most evocative books of all time. I was swept away immediatly by her involving narrative and descriptions. And let me tell you, the descriptions capture the Kenyan landscape and people remarkably well. It is just as wonderful and mysterious as Markham writes. This book transported me to the dazzling age of the 1920's and 30's in Kenya--which is full of fascinating trailblazers. I read a lot of the novel outloud, and her thoughts seemed to become my thoughts. Her anecdotes and experiences are so poignant that they seem to shoot me right through the heart. I want to reread this novel again and again, it is wonderous. Hemingway was right when he said " it is a bloody wonderful book." If you like Markham, you should read Isak Dineson's classic Out of Africa. However, Markham does more soul-searching and delving into herself than Dineson does. You'll recognize some familiar charactars as well. Both are true stories!

Wow...a beautiful heck of a book!, September 29, 2002
Mere moments have passed since I closed the back cover on "West with the Night", and already I am missing its world and its voice. It is one of those rare books that can, with the simple fluidity of its narrative, pull you in and engulf you entirely.

I am not a big fan of the memoir, but Markham's (or whoever wrote it) voice is neither bombastic nor humble; she feels less a narrator or subject than a fellow traveller, along with you for the ride. Although the life she lived was extraordinary and compelling, she refreshingly views it in clipped, casual, careful terms, as unimpressed with herself as if she'd been a midwestern housewife, not a pilot and horse trainer in Colonial Africa.

Many readers will approach "West with the Night" out of a pre-existing interest in and knowledge of its era and characters, and will no doubt experience it entirely differently than I did. While a few names rang vague bells, for the most it was an engaging introduction. But I read it as literature, not as history, and enjoyed it immensely as such. I found her small personal anecdotes far more interesting than the accounts of her grand feats. The Atlantic flight that made her famous rounds out the end of the book, but is rather dry and dull compared to her African tales. Stories such as her father's pompous parrot had me in spasms of public giggles.

It is little wonder that Hemmingway praised this book, as the sparse directness of its utilitarian prose makes even the Old Man of the Sea seem a flowery romantic. Its structure can be rather meandering, but in that regard it resembles the contours of memory, which makes me believe Markham did indeed write her own book.

Excellent book of a life in Eastern Africa, December 28, 2000
Whoever wrote it, "West With the Night" is a lyrically beautiful story of an amazing life: Beryl Markham arrived in Africa in 1905 at the age of three, she spent her childhood on her father's farm, learning all about African people and wildlife; she became a horse-trainer (racing was surprisingly popular in colonial Kenya); she was the first woman in Africa to have a pilot's license, working as a freelance pilot in Kenya; she was the first person to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic East-to-West (hence the book's title). This book is an interesting and very readable documentation of Kenya in the era of Isak Dinesen, Bror Blixen, Denys Finch Hatton, et al (all of whom she knew). Hemingway praised this book lavishly, saying:

"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, "West with the Night"? I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. .... But this girl who is, to my knowledge, very unpleasant,... can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers. The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true. So, you have to take as truth the early stuff about when she was a child which is absolutely superb. She omits some very fantastic stuff which I know about which would destroy much of the character of the heroine; but what is that anyhow in writing?"

As Hemingway may have suspected, Markham may not be the real author, and "West With the Night" does leave out major portions of her life; it would be a good idea to read it along with the biography of her life, "Straight On Till Morning: The Biography of Beryl Markham" by Mary Lovell (Lovell also wrote "A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton").

Beautiful prose, January 5, 2000
I picked this up in a garage sale, purely on the strength of the cover picture - it seemed like that face had seen and done a lot - which turns out to be absolutely true! More like poetry than prose, some of her descriptive passages have to be read more than once, just to let the feelings soak into your system. Ms Markham's early life is told in a matter-of-fact way, which takes it for granted that, when at 17, your father decides to leave Africa for Peru, you jump on your horse and head North, with no food, one change of underwear, little education, but a deep knowledge of horses and expect to land on your feet. Which is exactly what she does, co-incidentally meeting many yet-to-be-famous people on the way. Hunter; horse-trainer; aeronaut; most people would be happy to excel in any one of these professions, but Beryl does it all with surpassing ease. Her style is self-effacing and matter-of-fact; you would imagine that being 'moderately eaten' by a lion would warrant more than a couple of paragraphs, but it only gets included here, I suspect, on the strength of Bishon Singh's wonderful rhetoric in describing the event. She also has a knack of striking up instant and longlasting relationships with people from every race, creed and social status - I don't believe she even saw those differences; be he a Murani warrior or a colonial Governor, they both get treated to the same open-minded friendship. A book to read & read again.

The Wonders of the African Frontier, March 13, 2000
Historic, personal, and romantic tales of a female pioneer in aviation fill the pages of West with the Night. It is beautifully written, poetry put into chapters to tell of the adventures of the developing African frontier. The book follows the life of the Beryl Markham, the author, giving the reader a view into the lives of her native friends, the small social world of the British settlers, and a young girl growing up as the result of the integrating cultures. She is, herself, both fresh and new, one of the first to develop a mindset of blended customs. Besides observing the profits of the British cultural invasion of East Africa, the reader is, all the while, taken on a non-stop ride of African adventures. Like a child, pulling anxiously at your hand, sprinting onward toward further exploration, Markham speeds us through dangers ranging from leopards to the risks of early flight in an unmapped land. It is a mind-boggling world of naturally flowing chaos, deep thought, admiral respect, and truly amazing people, entirly unimaginable to the modern American. Markham has seen it like no one before her and few after, and when she puts it to paper, the reader can see directly into her heart. A must read.

A beautiful book..., May 23, 2000
I was talking about Africa one day, and one of my younger friends who had just completed college, recommended this book. I looked for the book because my friend is not given to reading, and the fact that she was impressed told me it might be an interesting book. I liked the book so much, I bought a "talking" version for my older aunt who has lost much of her vision and cannot read. She loved the book too. From this sample of three women, I can tell you this book will appeal to all ages.

Beryl Markham neglects many aspects of her colorful life, the story briefly covers her child hood in Africa and then mostly focuses on her wonderful flight, actually harder than Lindbergh's flight since she flew East to West, Europe to North America, against the jet stream. The description of the flight is thrilling up til the last when she crash lands--in North America.

If you want to know more about Beryl and her escapades, read "Out of Isak Dinesen, Karn Blixon's Untold Story" by Linda Donelson. Beryl knew Blixon (17 years her senior, and a mentor at some points) and Denis Finch Hatton. Also, the wonderful BBC film "Heat of the Sun" contains a character played by Susannah Harker (an avatrix) loosely based on Beryl Markham.

The Great American Novel - Only Its A True Story From Africa, July 1, 2003
Life and love, hardship and adventure, romance and history - all beautifully woven into a delightful autobiography of an unlikely heroine. The daughter of a poor white farmer trying to eke out a living in untamed and uncharted Africa, Beryl Markham rose from very humble beginnings to become a successful horse trainer, bush pilot, and the first person to fly east-to-west across the Atlantic from England. Her fantastic life seems to be one adventure after another, coincidentally commingled with the lives of Isak Dinesen (the author and heroine of "Out of Africa") and Denys Finch Hatton (played by Robert Redford in the movie, OOA). On this level alone, that of an adventure-packed historical tale, this book is compelling. But the absolute poetry of the narrative makes it inescapable.

Ms. Markham's inimitable flair for description and metaphor are enchantingly powerful. One could truly open the book to any random page and find a treasure. No previous knowledge of plot or precedence would be vital to the enjoyment. That such extraordinary prose also reveals an incredible life provides a rich dividend. Savor the following corsage randomly plucked from the bouquet:

"Arab Ruta... is of the tribe that observes with equal respect the soft voice and the hardened hand, the fullness of a flower, the quick finality of death. His is the laughter of a free man happy at his work, a strong man with lust for living. He is not black. His skin holds the sheen and warmth of used copper. His eyes are dark and wide-spaced, his nose is full-boned and capable of arrogance.

"He is arrogant now, swinging the propeller, laying his lean hands on the curved wood, feeling an exultant kinship in the coiled resistance to his thrust.

"He swings hard. A splutter, a strangled cough from the engine like the premature stirring of a sleep-slugged labourer. In the cockpit I push gently on the throttle, easing it forward, rousing the motor, feeding it, soothing it."

My first encounter with this charming book was accidental but fortuitous. I found the paperback in an airport bookstore, and stayed engrossed and enchanted by the lyrical meanderings for the entirety of my three-hour flight. A few years later I discovered the audio version which springs to an even greater life in the voice of Julie Harris. Her reading of the horse race that proved to be a watershed moment for Ms. Markham, still has the capacity to choke me to tears, though I have listened to it many times.

A few reviewers here have given less than laudatory reviews. This book is absolutely among the top five I have ever read, and I must pity those unfortunate souls who are tone-deaf to the rhapsodic music playing among its pages. Never mind my glowing endorsement. Never mind that Ernest Hemmingway said that Beryl Markham "has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer." Just find this book and open it randomly to any page. You will quickly discover that this book is an extraordinary encounter. Don't miss it!

Beats Hemingway Hands Down, June 25, 2000
I wasn't reading about Beryl Markham when I first learned of West With the Night. I was reading about Hemingway, a writer who is much better known and more admired than Markham, but to my way of thinking, with little reason. Apparently, Hemingway so admired this book that he was moved to the point of shame to know that he too was called a writer.

Stunningly evocative of life in East Africa in the early part of the 20th Century, West With the Night carries the reader directly into Markham's life. If there was a person lucky enough to have truly lived more than Markham lived, we might in fact have to turn to Hemingway to find him. Having broken all stereotypes before they were known as stereotypes, Markham did 80 years ago what few women today would even imagine. Raised by her widower father, Markham was the only white child within 200 miles in any direction. Under the tutelage of native hunters, she learned to face down lions and elephants, and went on to become a professional horse trainer. But flying was her true calling. Learning the geography of the cockpit from no less an instructor than Tom Black, one of England's best-known bush pilots and an aviator who is still revered, Markham soon became the only woman pilot in East Africa, delivering everything from the mundane (gin for the white hunters) to the life-saving (tanks of oxygen for malaria victims).

Throughout the book, we are treated to some of the most vivid descriptions of an Africa that is long gone. Curiously missing, however, is any sense of her love interests as she grew and matured. We come close when we learn of her affection for Tom Black, but the affection feels brotherly in nature. And, then again, when she partakes of a transcontinental adventure with the dashing Baron von Blixen---one of the legendary characters of colonial Africa--we're never certain if passion played a part. Perhaps the absence of a love interest is a reflection of the more genteel times in which the book was written, or perhaps her true love was Africa and the sense of being truly alive that such a place seems to have imparted to every day of Beryl Markham's life.

But in fact, Markham is still alive--in a way. You cannot help but sense her presence after the first chapter. West With the Night is that good.

Beryl Markham is Amazing, May 19, 2005
I was enthralled with this book from beginning to end. It is a fascinating biography of a remarkable woman and her accomplishments. But it is much more than a biography; in telling her story, Beryl Markham intimately and masterfully leads us through the years and adventures and places of her life.

As I flew through the pages, I couldn't help but experience a sweet fondness - almost as though I had somehow, through her eloquence, assimilated my own sanguine memories - for the things of her life, the things she loved; her Africa was my Africa.

Any person who has ever admitted to harboring prejudice - and we all do - should read this book. Beryl Markham accomplished great historically notable things, but her real legacy may be that in telling of her life, she introduces to us people, our earthly brothers, dwellers upon the Dark Continent, in a light that allows us to love them as kindred souls.

The book is inspiring, delightful and occasionally surprising as heroes emerge from unlikely places; real men and women of true character. It is a masterful expose with wonderful and enlightening narratives of the geography, vegetation, people and the wild and domestic animals of Beryl Markham's East Africa.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in adventure, aviation, humanity, horses, geography, world history, self governance, and everyone who savors life and seeks to be enriched with knowledge of the lives and ways of the great ones who have gone before us. Five Stars are well earned! -Obelus
... Read more

Editorial Review

An Illustrated Guide to the 250 Most Important Car Parts and how they work. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Imagine getting a glimpse of heaven, a preview of life in God's presence.Could life here ever be the same?

Capt. Dale Black has flown as a commercial pilot all over the world, but one flight changed his life forever--an amazing journey to heaven and back.

The only survivor of a horrific plane crash, Dale was hovering between life and death when he had a wondrous experience of heaven. What he saw, what he heard, and what he learned there continues to ripple through his life and touch others.

Against all odds, Dale miraculously recovered from his injuries and learned to fly again. Now, with his life as a testament, he shares his inspiring story--offering hope and encouragement for those dealing with serious injuries or the loss of a loved one, and those looking for assurance about this life and the next. ... Read more

Reviews

ABSOLUTELY the most incredile TRUE STORY of survival, recovery and faith that you will ever read!, May 14, 2010
In "Flight To Heaven", Captain Dale Black has put to paper one of the most incredible stories of survival, recovery and faith that you will ever read, and that's before he even tells you about heaven.
Being a skeptical person, I have generally held a cynical view of claims people have made about going to heaven temporarily and returning back to earth. However, after having the pleasure of meeting Dale briefly and then reading his book, I have no doubt that his story is true. The man is the definition of genuine, and to me the most striking part of his story is that he waited 40 years to tell anyone about it. While some people have attempted to cash in or commercialize their out-of-body experiences, Dale kept his a secret from everyone except his grandfather for four decades. Imagine having experienced Heaven and not telling anyone about it! But this particular aspect of the story made me truly believe.
As far as Dale's descriptions of heaven, they are truly breathtaking. I won't try to do them justice here or recap them, but rest assured that you will be mesmerized and inspired by his experience with the afterlife. It's hard to know what to say after reading it; but you will come away with a sense of awe and wonder, and longing to hear more about it.
The way this book is written is phenomenal considering the subject matter; and it is definitely very difficult to put down. The ending to the story is incredible, and I won't give it away here. But you will come away with amazement at Dale's life and story, and also at his faith and God's faithfulness to him. He's an incredible person with an incredible story. J. D. Sr. VP Business Banker

Wow! Where do I Even Begin??, April 23, 2010
Wow! Where do I even begin? The details of this book were so incredible that I felt as if I was on this journey as I read. This story has edified my faith that God is who He says He is and will do what He said He will do!! It enveloped me from beginning to end. I wanted to read slowly to grasp it all and yet I found myself reading it quickly as I couldn't wait to read what was going to happen next. For anyone who is searching for the truth about life and afterlife, this book is for you. It is a true, incredible, detailed encounter of God's ultimate love for His creation and the future plans He has for you!

Couldn't Put it Down! Inspirational, Moving, recommended reading for anyone., April 27, 2010
I just finished reading Flight to Heaven. I have read many books about life after death, heaven and NDE. Flight to Heaven is the most amazing and descriptive recount of heaven I've ever read. Absolutely breathtaking. The book kept me on the edge of my seat from cover to cover. The story was very credible, inspirational and moving. I have so many people that I want to give this book to. I strongly encourage anyone searching to understand more about God and life hereafter to read this book. I have been greatly impacted by it.

READ THIS BOOK! READ THIS BOOK! FOR SURE - READ THIS BOOK!!!, June 27, 2010
THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ!!! I've read several books on the subject of heaven - but Flight to Heaven is by far the best. "Flight to Heaven" is NOT just another book about heaven and the afterlife, you see. You will be taken on a journey - to heaven - and then back, but this is NOT the whole story. Capt. Black has written a true, validated and believable story that is a page-turner PLUS a faith-builder. How Capt. Dale was permanently affected by the traumatic experience in heaven is profoundly inspirational! Careful not to commercialize his sacred experience, the author told only his grandfather - for almost 40 years. The author tried to "live" his experience rather than talk about it. And for 40 years that's just what he did. And wow! Can't wait to learn what happens next. I'm sure there will be more books from this author.

Flight to Heaven will not only hold your interest, it will inspire and encourage you too. Certain to become a best seller, I have recommended this book to my church as well as all my family. If you are curious to know what Heaven is like, read this book. If you are curious about near-death experiences, read this book. If you want to learn how to deepen your relationship with God, read this book! If you want to learn about how God can do the miraculous, read this book!

H. Mayer

Trip of a lifetime, June 5, 2010
As Dale shares his struggles, miracles and triumphs, it is evident that he gives all the Glory to
the Creator of Heaven and Earth; the Creator that gave His only Son Jesus Christ, for a lost world.

It is also evident that this "trip of a lifetime" on his Flight to Heaven,
altered his heart to an extent, that he felt God's love for the people of this world,
in a new and nearly unexplainable way.

Reading of the glorious aspects of Heaven was astonishing and there was a feeling of
having the experience with him, as the story unfolds.
Equally amazing were the miracles he experienced as
he received healing through his faith in God's power.

I would love for everyone I know to read this book.

Flight to Heaven IS breathtakingly sacred., July 12, 2010
Capt. Black hasn't sensationalized anything. His descriptions are beautiful and flow deep into the heart. Flight to Heaven IS breathtakingly sacred. The book has God all the way through it AND God pouring out of it. Inside these pages I found God's message, God's love, God's touch, God's rescue. For me, Flight to Heaven is about a loving, personal God. And what an incredible story!

I wasn't sure what to expect but was drawn right in and unable to stop until the last page. Capt. Black introduces you to a personal caring God and you find yourself "feeling" his personal crisis and wanting to walk through it with him. His journey takes you from loneliness, anger, questioning and surrender. This is a precious book, by a precious author (although I've never met him), and is about a precious God. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

An incredible book, June 24, 2010
'Flight to Heaven' is an unforgettable book, which combines both adventure , the spirit of true faith and determination not simply to survive but to be a beacon of light to the rest of the world.
The lone survivor of a plane crash, Captain Black finds himself at the age of 19 grappling with the painful realities of the aftermath of the crash and his painful injuries, but also leaning on the healing strength of God who miraculously leads him to Heaven while he is in a coma, giving him a foretaste of the glory that is to come. Having seen and experienced this remarkable welcoming to Heaven, Captain Black spends the next 40 years living the adventure of faith, and finally gives us this tremendous account of his experiences.
I think everyone must read this book. It is hard to put down.

An Uplifting, Motivating Read!, July 14, 2010
I was recently taken on a roller coaster of a ride while reading the book, A Flight to Heaven.
And now, my thoughts...
I know that books like these can bring out the skeptic in us, but frankly, I don't care. I really, really enjoyed this book, and am proud to say it! The focus of the story wasn't on Heaven, it was really about this man's crash and the road to recovery - physical and spiritual. As I read of his challenges, I felt a kinship with him. It was so refreshing to read of the trials of faith he endured. It brought a sense of "realness" to the story, and gave me something to relate to. (I'm NOT the only one who has gotten angry at God for something, and later felt terrible about it!) The feelings of peace and the desire to love others better that I felt was enough to convince me that this was a worthwhile read. I finished the book with a longing to read the Bible more, to follow my Savior's footsteps no matter what trials there are, and most of all, to realize that God's will may not always be MY will, and THAT'S OKAY. I felt uplifted and happy while reading this book, and will gladly read it again when I need an extra boost. I'm giving this book 5 stars.

* I received no monetary compensation for this review. I was provided this book free of charge by Bethany House in exchange for my honest review. These opinions are mine and mine alone.

Wonderful true story!, July 12, 2010
It's the best book I've read in a long time. Besides being a wonderfully inspirational story about faith leading to miracles, it is very well written.

Amazing, June 27, 2010
All I can say is "Wow!" This is one terrific book. Captain Black gives an amazing and descriptive recount of heaven as he experienced it in a near death experience. It sure gives you hope and assurance of heaven. This is the author's life story and testimony. It almost reads like an adventure novel. Sure worth the read! ... Read more

Editorial Review

Ferdinand Magellan's daring circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century was a three-year odyssey filled with sex, violence, and amazing adventure. Now in Over the Edge of the World, prize-winning biographer and journalist Laurence Bergreen entwines a variety of candid, firsthand accounts, bringing to life this groundbreaking and majestic tale of discovery that changed both the way explorers would henceforth navigate the oceans and history itself.

Reviews

What a ride!, February 1, 2004
I loved this book.
The amazing story of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world practically writes itself, especially with access to the journals of Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian "passenger". The key for any author is not muck up this incredible story. Bergreen succeeds wonderfully by offering a smooth read. The books 400 plus pages fly by. Bergreen seemingly omits nothing and, the journey is here in all its gory, exciting, repellent, horrifying, shocking, wondrous, cruel, beautiful, nerve-wracking, spine-tingling detail.
Bergreen presents about as clear a picture of Magellan the man as possible from nearly 500 years away. The reader is left to admire his leadership and navigational skills and lament his capriciousness and hubris.
Coming on the heels of the vastly overrated Columbus journeys, Magellan's expedition was to prove equally significant, though more calculated and replete with many, many more adventures and tragedies.
A scant few of the original crew and only one of the five ships completed the journey. Along the way there were horrendous storms, mutinies, executions, horrible accidents, illness (scurvy in particular) and all manner of encounters with natives. These encounters could lead to everything from feasts and orgies to murder and dismemberment.
Bergreen does a wonderful job of framing the story within the perspective of the times and the religious, political and social climates.
To me the real hero of the journey emerges in the person of Pigafetta who did a superlative of chronicling the adventure. His must be some of the most thoughtful and thorough journals of their times.
Bergreen's book does him and Magellan's journey justice.

True to life sea adventure, November 4, 2003
Historical achievement is, of course, about people. So no matter when it occurs, achievement is driven by technology, greed, politics, ambition, mistakes, courage, religion, culture, sexuality, and even diet. Good History is as much as about explaining the context of achievement, as it is about detailing facts. This is good History -- and it's a great read.

For most of us, the facts about Magellan have been boiled down to Spanish galleons, funny helmets, and the first circumnavigation of the globe. Bergreen recovers the context to tell a story of a religious man, driven by vision, ambition, and personal slight. Along the way he explains the strategic urgency of Magellan's quest and details the logistics of undertaking the voyage. He helps us understand why cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg were matters of national security to sixteenth century Europeans.

Bergreen leaves us with no doubt that Magellan was courageous. His Magellan is not evil, though the evils of the Age of Exploration are already evident in him and his men. As in other tellings, Magellan's death on the beach at Cebu is an obvious metaphor for the collision of East and West, but Bergreen leaves it to others to belabor the notion. He's much more interested in describing the local politics that set the scene for the tragedy.

With such rich detail and engaging writing, the story of Magellan comes to life as a vivid adventure and an enlightening history.

Page-turning history, December 11, 2003
Does a history book have this much right to be a fun page-turner? Yes, and Laurence Bergreen exceeds to great story telling, marvelous adventure, creating a just plain enjoyable read. Taken either as history or read like a novel this is an amazingly detailed telling of three year voyage which ended in 1522 with only one ship and 18 survivors out of the original five ships and 260 who left Spain with this Portuguese Captain. Even the early chapters, which tell how a Portuguese ends up leading the Spanish fleet, is a marvelous story. But in the end, what stays with you is the shear terror, boredom, disease, and strange island customs all left for us to enjoy because of basically one man, Antonio Pigafetta who was taken on to chronicle the voyage and some how managed to survive mutiny, the voyage through the strait, the native peoples defense of their territories (which resulted in the death of Magellan himself), and in the end being cast aside for a more "official version". Bergreen could not have told his story without Pigafetta and Pigafetta could not have found a better writer to bring his story to a modern audience. I highly recommend this great read!

Frustratingly Uneven, December 31, 2003
Despite its obvious merits as cited by other reviewers, I found this to be a frustratingly uneven book. Yes, it has the compelling flow of a good novel, yet that flow was too often broken by unexpected failures to properly explain or illustrate key points.

I was frequently distracted by the lack of good maps to supplement Bergreen's prose accounts of the Armada's route. Most saliently, the author or his editors have chosen to not include a map of the Strait of Maglellan itself. Instead there are some admittedly fascinating depictions of portions of the Strait and a NASA photograph from space that I found utterly indecipherable.

While Bergreen's long asides on peripheral topics often hit the mark -- such as his discussion of scurvy and its eventual decoding -- others, including some crucial to his account, fall substantially short. Despite the issue's importance, none of Bergreen's numerous attempts to explain the Pope's demarcation of Spanish and Portugese spheres of control (the Treaty of Tordesiillas) adequately clarify how it applied to the Spice Islands on the other side of the world and already explored by Portugal. Of course, this could possibly be the result of my own denseness; others may find his explication perfectly comprehensible. I did not.

Also in this category of incomplete clarification is the author's mention of the International Date Line and the fact of its non-existence in Magellan's day. He references this drawback twice and both times he is satisfied with saying that the Dateline now extends westward from Guam. Of all the facets he could emphasize, this seems an odd choice given that the Dateline does (and must) run for the most part North-South. The location of the Date Line is in fact a highly complex subject (see http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/idl/idl.htm), yet no map that I'm aware of shows it running near Guam. Yes, as a U.S. possession, Guam maintains an idiosyncratic relationship to GMT. And, yes, Guam was Magellan's first landing after crossing the Pacific. But Bergreen should have provided greater context for his remark.

These and other examples of what I deem to be distracting lapses often brought me up short. But the book is obviously the product of prodigious research (in, for the most part, attractive places to do such research), and the faults I cite may not seem so for many readers. The power of the story and Bergreen's skill in telling it will carry most readers through to the end, just as it did for this reader.

But ... it definitely needs more maps.

detailed, vivid, interestingly digressive, November 28, 2003
Mention Magellan and most will tell you he's that guy that sailed around the world. There their knowledge ends, or such as it is, since as Bergreen reminds us in wonderful detail, it was some of Magellan's crew that actually sailed around the world while the majority of it, along with Magellan himself, actually only survived part of the trip.
Packed with historical detail supplemented by first person accounts and side stories that some will find of equal or surpassing interest and others might find too digressive, Bergreen gives us a satisfyingly full look at the man and the journey.
The focus for the first three-quarters of the book is of course on Magellan. His early life history is quickly covered, enough to inform us of his abilities and motivations without bogging the reader down in unnecessary detail or too much psychohistory ("rejected by his father at age six, young Magellan turned to the sea to prove . . . "). The details start to come in Magellan's early attempts to convince his native Portugal to sponsor a journey to the Spice Islands and accumulate even more fully once he takes his leave for Spain and the planning for the trip begins in earnest.
The trip itself is covered in sharp and vivid detail--the political in-fighting, the mutual antagonisms of class and country aboard ship, multiple mutiny attempts, successful and not-so-succesful contacts with natives, and of course the nautical travails themselves--deathly storms,a myriad of navigational obstacles and pursuing Portugese. Not to mention the fact that the entire trip was based on an idea that the world was much, much smaller than it in fact turned out to be.
Most of the trip is seen through the lens of Magellan, and while a clear fan of Magellan, Bergreen is also unafraid to criticize his many errors with regard to ship policy, to politics, to contact with the natives. Magellan comes across as a complex all-too human figure rather than an icon or simple villain. Brilliant at times and amazingly stupid at others, he never fails to hold our attention. Other important figures in the crew are offered similar respect with regard to the fullness of their portrayals.
Beside the journey's details, the reader is treated to digressions into royal relationships, international maneuvering, the importance of spices to sixteenth century economies, the running battle for economic and nautical supremacy between Spain and Portugal, and maybe most fascinating of all, a brief history of the Chinese Treasure Fleet. While some might think Bergreen goes into too much detail here, other might wish for more. I personally fell somewhere in between, able to live with less on the royal personages and wanting more on the spice trade itself (those who feel the same way could do worse than turn to Nathaniel's Nutmeg for more on the topic)as well as on the Treasure Fleet.
I thought at times Bergreen could have left the "European" perspective a bit more, giving us a more full glimpse at the journey from the other end of the spectrum. I also could have done with more frequent use of maps throughout the book to have a more immediate and visual sense of Magellan's progress (or lack thereof). While I felt the lack of both several times, these flaws were relatively minor and only detracted somewhat from the work as a whole. Money, lust, greed, politics, mutiny, pride, betrayal, tragic accidents, man versus nature, battles, shipwrecks, castaways, man versus man, heroism and cowardice, man versus himself. The book has it all, with the added luxury of being true. Well-recommended history.

Around The World In 3 Years And 60,000 Miles, October 28, 2003
Why couldn't they have used books like this as history textbooks back when I was in high school? All I was taught back then was that Magellan's expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe (even though he himself died along the way); that the voyage took 3 years; and that although Magellan was from Portugal, he sailed for Spain. Here's some of the good stuff they left out (but which Mr. Bergreen includes): Magellan tried to get King Manuel of Portugal to finance the expedition. Magellan didn't have any luck. (Not surprising, since the explorer already had "a history" with the king, and the king didn't like him.) What could have been the last straw for Magellan was when, after an audience with the king, Magellan tried to kiss the king's hand (as was customary). The king withdrew his hand and wouldn't allow Magellan to kiss it. Magellan finally decided to give Manuel the kiss-off, went to Charles I of Spain, and had better luck. Charles was quite interested in the potential profits from the spice trade. (He was broke after borrowing a wad of money from the Fugger family. The reason he borrowed the money? He had to pay a lot of bribes to the electors who were going to decide who the next Holy Roman Emperor was going to be. Charles wanted the position even though, as Voltaire later said, the Holy Roman Empire wasn't holy, wasn't Roman, and wasn't an empire.) Manuel of Portugal was quite upset with Magellan for offering his services to Spain, especially because he brought secret Portuguese navigational charts with him (which Mr. Bergreen explains would be equivalent to the theft of nuclear secrets during the Cold War). Manuel sent an envoy to Spain to try and talk Magellan out of the trip. When that didn't work, the envoy bad-mouthed Magellan to Charles I. That didn't work either. After Magellan sailed, Manuel really got mad: he sent some thugs to harass Magellan's family and to vandalize the family home. For good measure, excrement was smeared on the Magellan escutcheon. Manuel also sent out his own expedition to try to catch up with, and stop, Magellan. I guess you could say the king was a sore loser. Anyway, this all takes place in the beginning of the story. Things get better after that. (For example, we learn that Charles I's mother was called Juana the Mad. One reason for this just could have been that for several years Juana kept the remains of her late husband, Philip the Handsome, next to her bed. She expected him to come back to life and wanted him in a convenient spot. After Philip's death Juana also insisted on only dressing in black and she refused to bathe.) The book is chock full of 16th century realpolitik, mutinies, torture, natural history, as well as information on spices and the erotic practices of various Pacific Islanders. We also get to read some interesting material about the 15th century Chinese Treasure Fleets. Mr. Bergreen is obviously a big Magellan fan, but he doesn't put the great navigator's faults below deck - Magellan could be overly strict, arrogant, and close-minded. As the voyage went on and he finally made it to the Pacific he seemed to forget that his primary mission was to find the Spice Islands and he got sidetracked into converting islanders to Christianity. If any groups resisted, Magellan would resort to hardball - in one case, burning down a village. His "bull in a china shop" tactics resulted in his death. Still, the author leaves you with no doubt that, on balance, Magellan was admirable. The book is incredibly far-ranging in scope and I've only skimmed the surface concerning what is between the covers - and we're supposed to keep these reviews relatively brief. In conclusion though, let me say if I were doing the advertising for the book I'd write, "If you read only one book about an explorer this year...make it this one!"

great account of one of the legendary journeys, October 17, 2003
Laurence Bergreen provides a deep look at Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan's sixteenth century quest that led to the first known navigation of the world. This journey is a pivotal point in how Europeans viewed the world as people realized that not only will one not fall off the globe, but that Europe is not the epicenter of the orb. Mr. Bergreen followed the ill-fated journey through what is now the Straits of Magellan at the tip of South America and uses satellite images to further enhance the trek. Of interest to historical buffs is the daily journal that encompasses known research from around the globe. This includes sailor Albo's log and the comments of scholar sailor Pigafetta. The author debunks several modern day myths such as Magellan's mission was not go around the world, but to find a water route to the Spice Islands; and that the voyage was not glorious but brutal and filled with tragedy and misfortunes including the Captain having died in the Philippines. Magellan never made it. The trek took three years with only one ship with eighteen survivors making it back to Spain.

This is a great account of one of the legendary journeys of history. Supplemented by maps, inserts, and first hand accounts, readers join on the harrowing trek that proved once and for all that the world is round. No one will feel over the edge with this great look at the "Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe" by Magellan and his crew.

Harriet Klausner

An amazing, exciting and meticulously researched book., October 14, 2003
This book is a combination of exciting, fast-paced narrative and meticulous research that is hard to put down. Bergreen places the reader alongside Magellan as he seeks backing for his trip, and then on Magellan's flagship, the Trinidad, with the Captain General on his historic voyage. In the end, Magellan succeeded in changing mankind's fundamental understanding of the world, overcoming obstacles, adversaries and long-held views to do so.

Particularly absorbing are the book's insights into the strengths and flaws of the players involved. Magellan was clearly a masterful navigator, a man with a vision and the single-minded ambition to pursue it. When the Portuguese refused to back his venture and made a point of disdaining him, Magellan turned to their rivals, the Spanish, who agreed to support him -- but also somewhat unsubtly undermined his authority on the voyage. (The mystery of Portugal's refusal is made clear late in the book; it is an incredible piece of irony that resonates with current events.) As the voyage proceeds, facing hostile natural conditions, resentment among a crew with divided loyalties, and the unknown, Magellan emerges as a complex personality, a man with a sure hand in some matters but blind spots that prove increasingly costly.

The objective of the mission was ostensibly to bring home (to Spain) spices and, more specifically, cloves. Men died, nations clashed, ships were lost, and mankind's knowledge of the world was expanded to this end. And, ultimately, when the survivors of Magellan's fleet returned to port, their reception was a mix of skepticism, hostility, and amazement, filtered through a political lens of faltering monarchies and changing times. This is a well-told story that is fraught with current relevance.

An Incredible Journey and an Excellent Book!, June 11, 2004
I rarely give books a 5 star rating, but this one certainly deserves it. The book gives full account of Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, in all its horrifying and glorious details. While it is clear that the writer is a staunch Magellan admirer, he does not hesitate to criticize Magellan's style of leadership, the Captain's over-inflated ego or the needless risks he took (one of which ultimately resulted in his death).

Reading this book, I found myself transported into 16th century Europe, an era full of intrigue, magic and of casual disregard for human life. The book was absolutely captivating and I was not able to put it down. From my perspective, the most interesting thing about the story is that while today Magellan is recognized as a hero and as one of the most important explorers of all time, in his day Magellan received no recognition and was the target of suspicion and hatred.

For the most part, Bergreen's writing style is fluid and easy to read, however at times it is a bit too flowery for my taste. The book also suffers from a shortage of illustrations and maps which could have been instructive. For example, an illustration of Magellan's ships, the weapons and armor of the era and current pictures of some of the main locations involved, would all have been nice. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book for any fan of popular history books.

Not an Advertisement for a Cruise Line!!, April 9, 2004
When I was in Junior High School, my History teacher told us that Magellan took some ships from Spain, found the straits that now bear his name and then was eaten by cannibals in the Philippines. That pretty much summed up my entire exposure to Magellan's journey until I read this fanatastic book. Begreen tells the tale in such a way that would put my Junior High School teacher to shame and I would say that this should be required reading in high schools throughout America. Not only does Bergreen write very well, but he puts the story of Magellan and his crew into the proper historical perspective by relaying what is going on in the world at the same time as this voyage. The disputes and distrust between the Spanish and the Portuguese, the influence of the Chinese and Arabs on Southeast Asia, the effects of the Inquisition on the crew, are all brought out to the forefront of this story and this allows the reader to fully understand who Magellan was, why he and the crew did the things they did and why the entire mission almost failed.

At the same time, Bergreen totally immerses the reader into every detail of life at sea in the 16th Century. I doubt anyone alive today could stand what those sailors had to survive, trapped aboard those leaking, rotting wooden ship, without proper food, healthcare, or even fresh water. Anyone taking a Caribbean Cruise should read this book first to fully appreciate that life at sea is not one All-You-Can-Eat Buffet and shuffleboard. Make sure your kids eat their fruits and vegetables, as scurvy is not a problem you want to have in your family!!!

I totally recommend this book. It's a quick, enjoyable read that puts the reader right onto the deck of a 16th Century caravel for one of the most courageous and daring voyages ever undertaken by man. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Seized throws open the hatch on the shadowy world of maritime shipping, where third-world governments place exorbitant liens against ships, pirates seize commercial vessels with impunity, crooks and con artists reign supreme on the docks and in the shipyards—and hapless owners have to rely on sea captain Max Hardberger to recapture their ships and win justice on the high seas.
 
A ship captain, airplane pilot, lawyer, teacher, writer, adventurer, and raconteur, Max Hardberger recovers stolen freighters for a living.  In Seized, he takes us on a real-life journey into the mysterious world of freighters and shipping, where fortunes are made and lost by the whims of the waves.  Desperate owners hire Max Hardberger to “extract” or steal back ships that have been illegitimately seized by putting together a mission-impossible team to sail them into international waters under cover of darkness.  It’s a high stakes assignment—if Max or his crew are caught, they risk imprisonment or death.
 
Seized takes readers behind the scenes of the multibillion dollar maritime industry, as he recounts his efforts to retrieve freighters and other vessels from New Orleans to the Caribbean, from East Germany to Vladivostak, Russia, and from Greece to Guatemala.  He resorts to everything from disco dancing to women of the night to distract the shipyard guards, from bribes to voodoo doctors to divert attention and buy the time he needs to sail a ship out of a foreign port without clearance.  Seized is adventure nonfiction at its best. ... Read more

Reviews

Readable and entertaining series of yarns, March 5, 2010

A Most Unusual Specialty - Stealing Ships, April 28, 2010
Max Hardberger's Seized, a Sea Captains Adventures - Battling Scoundrels and Pirates while Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters is a fascinating account of one man's remarkable career and personal journey. In addition to working professionally as a crop-duster, school teacher, lawyer, and ship's captain, Max Hardberger developed the rather unusual specialty of returning stolen property, very large stolen property. He steals back ships wrongly seized in foreign ports and returns them to their owners.

There is a cliche that petty thieves steal with guns while the big thieves steal with pens. Hardberger's career as a "ship extractor" began when as captain of the bulk carrier, Naruda, which had just discharged a cargo of rice in Haiti, a claim was filed against the ship for a short discharge. The claim was false and even if valid, should have been filed against shipper and not the ship. Nevertheless an unscrupulous merchant, paying off a corrupt judge in a third world port, just might have succeeded in stealing the ship. With guile, stealth, liquor for the guards, and a bit of bribery Captain Hardberger succeeded in slipping the ship out of Cap Haitian. It was the beginning of a highly varied career as a ship thief.

In Seized, Captain Hardburger describes sneaking ships out of Venezuela, Haiti, Trinidad, Belgium, Honduras, Mexico and Greece, as well as flying forty seven crop dusters out of East Germany. In the process he had to cope with corrupt officials, the Russian mob, political unrest, and a mixed bag of scoundrels, pirates and con men.

He describes the difficulty of sneaking ship out of port. Most ships have diesel engines which can make a lot of noise in the dead of night when trying to slip out of a port unnoticed. In one case, Captain Hardberger merely slipped the lines and let the ship drift out with the wind and current to a waiting tug. In another case, he arranged for a very noisy party at a neighboring waterfront whorehouse to mask the sound of the ship's engines starting up. The range of trickery, diversions and deceptions used to extract ships from ports around the world is highly entertaining.

What makes this memoir something more than a group of sea stories loosely strung together is that we also follow Captain Harberger's personal journey. This includes the highs and lows, from his passing the California bar exam to become an attorney (after completing a law school correspondence course,) to the end of his marriage and the tragic loss of a daughter to heart disease. The memoir ends in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina where he has lost most of his worldly possessions while still in mourning over his daughter's death. Nevertheless, it is clear that he will carry on. There is still work to be done and just possibly more ships to save.

Seized, a Sea Captains Adventures - Battling Scoundrels and Pirates while Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters is a gripping story of real-life adventure. A highly enjoyable read.

Amazing, May 16, 2010
I had never thought of how one would go about recovering a stolen ship. This book was an education.

Nautical Repossessions, March 26, 2010

Seized - Catching Up On An Old Friend, June 7, 2010
I met Max in 1976 or 77 while in college; my roomate at the time, Chuck, and Max had been good friends for a number of years. After college, I saw him infrequently for the next few years and probably have not seen him "face to face" since the mid-1990s. I did see our mutual friend fairly regularly unitl he passed away last year and he always had some kind of story about what Max was up to. Aside from being what I'd call a good, entertaining read, "Seized" filled in a lot of chronogical gaps in our friendship for me and put into perspective some of the comments Chuck had made over the years. The stories in "Seized" read exactly the way I would expect based what I personally know about Max's life and on Chuck's recounting of what Max was up during those years when Max and I were out of touch. I can assure you that these stores are based in fact and it is a good account of Max's life. I've seen some comments to the effect that some reviewers might be interested in hearing these stories in person. I can promise you that it would be one of the most interesting and entertaining evenings you could have. I think he is available for those kinds of engagements. You can contact him via maxhardberger dot com.

True Adventure On The High Seas, March 21, 2010

Great stories!, March 9, 2010

Great sea stories!, March 9, 2010

Great stories told from an amazing man, March 3, 2010

A true life story for Hammond Innes fans, May 14, 2010