Books Worth A Look

Sea of Lost Dreams: A Dugger/Nello Novel by Ferenc Máté ($25; Albatross; available on amazon.com). Set in the fiercely beautiful volcanic islands of French Polynesia, this second novel in the Dugger/Nello historical adventure series is the story of man against the fury of the elements, of dreams colliding with reality, and of an anguished culture combating tyranny. Read an excerpt here. -The Editors

Bull Canyon: A Boatbuilder, a Writer, and other Wildlife by Lin Pardey ($25; 2011; Paradise Cay Publications, www.paracay.com, also available on amazon.com). For four decades we’ve followed the watery exploits of the Pardeys, first aboard Seraffyn and then sailing Taleisin to the far corners of the world. In Bull Canyon, Lin takes us on a different voyage, this one ashore to a secluded stone cabin in a canyon 60 miles inland from the Los Angeles waterfront. Here, in 1979, Lin spreads her wings as a writer while Larry lays the keel, planks the sides, and fits out the interior of Taleisin. From bulldozers to mud to deer in the garden, Lin spins a wonderful tale of sailors turned dirt dwellers. In the end, their four years spent navigating shore life convince the first couple of cruising that their home truly is on the water with the bow pointed to a distant waypoint. -Mark Pillsbury

Gone to the Sea: An Anthology by Herb McCormick ($17; 2011; Paradise Cay Publications, www.paracay.com, also available on amazon.com). All the great sea stories, from Jonah to the present, are epics of human aspiration, the achievement or tragic unraveling of dreams of sailors who go to sea to meet their truest selves. Wind, weather, and boats are simply the dramatic props. No one now writing about the sea and sailors appreciates this more acutely than Herb McCormick, a longtime editor with this magazine who’s found the time and compulsion to experience the sea in all its moods, in every far-flung ocean. This anthology covering his three decades of smallboat adventuring belongs at the irreducible core of every sailor’s bookshelf. -Peter Nichols

Sailing Out of Retirement: Living the Dream by Matts G. Djos ($16; 2010; Matts G. Djos, amazon.com). In a nation of aging baby boomers, this self-published volume targets an often-ignored niche: senior sailors. The crux of the book is a primer based on the septuagenarian author’s experiences gleaned when, after retirement, he and his wife bought a Mariner 31 ketch and went cruising. Djos advises on choosing and buying a pre-owned boat, refitting, selecting a marina, heavy-weather tactics, and medical issues for older cruisers. -Lynda Morris Childress