Show Off Your Book Stack!

What are you reading these days?

Boating books tend to multiply and accumulate. Before you know it a stack has grown on the coffee or bedside table, or the work bench in the shop. Maybe one or two you’re reading for the first time, but usually there are a few you’re reading again or simply going back to for reference.

A few years ago we recognized this curious phenomenon and started posting photos of Book Stacks. It’s a fun way to learn about titles you might want to add to your own library. Please send us a photo of your Stack along with any notes you’d like to add about each text. Send to josh@smallcraftadvisor.com —Eds

This little stack materialized in our office. On top is the signed copy of Roger Taylor’s Mingming II & the Islands of the Ice, which a lucky SCA reader just won.

If you’re interested in human limits as they relate to small boats, you’re probably familliar with Dr. Hannes Lindemann, who made to transatlantic crossings—one in a dugout canoe and another a Klepper sailing kayak. Alone at Sea can be found here.

Our friend Bob Burgess’s Handbook of Trailersailing is a classic for trailersailors and pocket-cruiser types. Com-Pac Yacht owners find it especially fun reading.

Richard Henderson gives really good, practical advice on Sailing in Windy Weather in this little gem of a book.

Sailing America is friend and SCA Editor-at-Large, Larry Brown’s excellent Trailer Sailor’s Guide to North America.

Tony Gibbs’ The Coastal Cruiser has long been a favorite of mine. Ambitiously subtitled: A complete guide to the design, selection, purchase and outfitting of auxiliary sailboats under 30 feet—with a portfolio of successful designs, he somehow manages to deliver. The book is dated, but still plenty relevant. •SCA•