Drawn from over 35 years of the author`s own experiences, this book is packed with expert wisdom & h&-holding guidance on every aspect of owning, equipping, maintaining, sailing, & of course, enjoying your first boat. Topics covered include: choice of boat, insurance, assessing (and costing) moorings & berths, navigation & safety equipment, domestic equipment (galley, bedding, clothing, etc), navigation (including in fog), manoeuvring in close spaces, sources of weather information & forecasts, responsibilities towards crew, catering & cooking, maintenance advice (daily tips, winterising, engine servicing, fitting out for spring, etc), paperwork (including customs forms), dealing with emergencies & more. ...

Isle of Mull covers the coasts & islands from Crinan to Fort William & Ardnamurchan as well as Mull, Coll & Tiree. The last of Martin Lawrence's pilots to the west coast of Scotland to be revised & reissued in full colour, the sailing directions & plans have been fully updated & are now illustrated with new colour photographs from sea level & the air. ...

This pilot covers the most remote areas of the west coast of Scotland between Ardnamurchan Point & Cape Wrath & the Island of Skye. Martin Lawrence has completely revised the text & for this edition has added new photographs taken from both the air & sea. The use of full colour throughout the work brings a clarity to the photographs & harbour plans. New photographs have been added to support changes to the text & plans in this 3rd edition. Martin Lawrence has spent many years sailing on the West Coast of Scotland & is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation. He is well known as the author of the Yachtsman`s Pilot series. ” An excellent example of how text, charts & photos can be made to work together to enhance the information available to the navigator. It is also further evidence that this publisher is far ahead of its rivals in presentation of information for the yachtsman”.
- CT, Yachting Monthly ” Yachtsman`s Pilot to Skye & NW Scotland is a revelation in clarity. The layout is excellent with line drawings & chartlets on the same page & often with a photograph making it useful to have on deck when eyeballing. This book is an essential item on any boat ruising north of Ardnamurchan Point”.
- Cruising Association Bulletin

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Highly acclaimed upon its initial publication, Alaa Al Aswany`s The Yacoubian Building is a mesmerising & controversial novel that is at once an impassioned celebration & a ruthless dissection of a society dominated by bribery & corruption. The Yacoubian Building -once gr&, now dilapidated- stands on one of Cairo`s main boulevards. Taha, the doorman`s son, has aspirations beyond the slum in the skies, & dreams of one day becoming a policeman. He studies hard, & passes all the exams, but when he is rejected because his family is neither rich nor influential, the bitterness sets in. His girlfriend, Busayna, finds herself unable to earn a living without also providing sexual services for the men who hire her. When Taha seeks solace in a student Islamic organisation, the pressure mounts, & he is drawn to actions with devastating consequences. The Yacoubian Building follows Taha`s trajectory from innocence to tragedy. The people whose lives orbit his -- the inhabitants of the building -- are also facing their own difficult choices. From those living in squalid & cramped conditions on the rooftops, to the homosexual editor of Le Caire newspaper & a womanising aristocrat, all of the contradictions in Egyptian society are here. Religious feelings live side by side with promiscuity; bribery & exploitation alternate with moments of joy & elation; modernity clashes with the vision of a more ancient society. Alaa Al Aswany`s mesmerising novel provoked cries of anger & social rebuke when it was published in Egypt. Provoking, controversial or astutely realised, The Yacoubian Building is without doubt an impassioned celebration & a ruthless dissection of a society dominated by bribery & corruption. ...

Isabella Bird was one of the greatest travellers & travel writers of all time, & this is her last major book, a sympathetic look at inland China & beyond into Tibet at the end of the 19th century. In describing the journey, Isabella provides a rich mix of observations & describes two occasions when she is almost killed by anti-foreign mobs. It many ways, Isabella created the model for travel writing today, & this one of her greatest works. ...

* Winner of the Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year* A thoughtful, captivating & ultimately uplifting novel from this uniquely talented author The year that changed my life. For Jasmine, losing her job felt like losing everything. The year I found home. With a life built around her career & her beloved sister Heather, suddenly her world becomes the house & garden she has hardly seen & the neighbours she has yet to meet. The year I met you. But being fired is just the beginning for Jasmine. In the year that unfolds she learns more about herself than she could ever imagine
- & more about other people than she ever dreamed. Sometimes friendship is found in the most unexpected of places.
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This beautiful, practical diary is supplemented by a wealth of further information, including CAMRA`s beer festivals, beer storage tips, beer`s patron saints & much more. An essential & attractive publication for the traditional real ale drinker as well as the most style-conscious of beer hipsters. ...

Tired of the bl&, processed pap served up in supermarkets & identikit restaurants across the UK, food writer Tom Parker Bowles embarks on a picaresque global odyssey in search of culinary extremes. The first to admit he has a timid tummy, Tom eschews the Michelin-starred restaurants he`s grown accustomed to & seeks out the most authentic regional foods he can find. Full of trepidation, he puts his prejudices behind him & samples seahorse satay & millipede skewers in China, indulges in stomach-popping competitive eating in the States, & tentatively consumes the world`s most poisonous fish in Japan. Brilliantly written & often laugh-out-loud funny, this is an eye-opening adventure in the company of a man who may not be brave, but is certainly curious. Tom`s visceral account of his journey will make your mouth water...most of the time. ...

When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutl&, journalist & archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn`t Disneyl&, but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long dark winters, cured herring, Lego & pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born, or made? Helen decides there is only one way to find out: she will give herself a year, trying to uncover the formula for Danish happiness. From childcare, education, food & interior design to SAD, taxes, sexism & an unfortunate predilection for burning witches. The Year of Living Danishly is a funny, poignant record of a journey that shows us where the Danes get it right, where they get it wrong, & how we might just benefit from living a little more Danishly ourselves. ...

' The Year of Magical Thinking' is one of five classic Fourth Estate books to be released as numbered, collectable editions to mark the 25th anniversary. The books will be beautifully produced hardbacks, limited to 2000 copies each, with jackets designed by some of the finest artists at work today. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne & Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma & placed on life support. Days later -- the night before New Year's Eve -- the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive & fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed & underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion's 'attempt to make sense of the weeks & then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness!about marriage & children & memory!about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself'. ...