WOODEN BOATS AND BOOKS

While wooden boats (both working traditional craft and classic yachts) are one of my passions, another equally compelling and all consuming passion is books.   Over the years I’ve amassed a sizeable maritime library of about 1500 titles in categories ranging from square riggers, clipper ships and whaling vessels, to maritime humor and galley guides.   In between I have books on Gloucester fishing schooners, classic yacht design, traditional wooden construction,  types and properties of wood and metal, cruising guides, yachting annuals, fiction, reference (medicine at sea, dictionaries, old Lloyd’s Registers, encyclopedias, rigging, spar construction and the like), histories of ports and places, as well as specific vessels, cruising stories and collections, racing, books by and about women at sea, maritime art including photographs, paintings and other forms of illustration, scrimshaw, provisioning guides and recipe books, navigation and maritime weather, Coast Pilots, charts, and various books which are not easily categorized.    Searching for information has led me to some wonderful resource books and there are others that I have because they are such lovely books.  There are even armchair sailor books.  Although many of my books are not currently for sale they do provide a well-informed view of what is available.   If you are looking for a specific title,  please ask.  I do have duplicate copies of some books, or, if you have some flexibility in timing I certainly can find copies of almost any book published (in English) that you may wish to purchase.  

Another collection that I’ve accumulated over the years is cook books.  I have many regional (mainly American and European) and specialized books devoted to one topic such as sea weed or tomatoes, cooking at sea, or on a wood stove.   With the shelves bursting the time has come for me to start to disburse this collection.   If you have a general area of interest or a specific request, please contact me to see if I have a copy to sell, or if I can find you a copy.  

My next area of interest is mystery books.   Mystery books have exploded in popularity and from the beginnings in the late 1800’s early 1900’s the number of sub-category genres has exploded as well.   There are police procedurals, spy stories, murders, detective series, and even books about computer fraud and theft with a lot of categories in between.  The thirst for mysteries has spawned magazines, movies, TV series and even websites and blogs devoted to each of the genres from cozies to thrillers, and even to various periods and locales such as the British Golden Age writers or Scandinavian and Icelandic noir.    I love the British mysteries and have a large collection of out of print paperbacks which I treasure.    I also have an ever changing collection of mysteries (mainly paperback) which are for sale, and would be glad to search for that elusive title by a favorite author, or to help you find some new favorites.

To sell, I have accumulated a very diverse collection of books related to the Vineyard or by local authors.     In addition I have, or can find many kid favorites that we loved way back when.   These are not collectible or precious rare titles, they are hard to find books that you remember and wish to read to your grandkids.

Send a list of your wants and needs to info@vineyardsailing.com.   My rates for searching are reasonable, so let me see what I can find for you!