Book Reviews

This area has been divided into several distinct sections, each concerned with different resources. New books are always easy to review whilst there is a unique pleasure to be gained from reading through some of the older volumes. They clearly illustrate how our sport has developed over the last century and a half. It is not that the journeys have become more extreme, people were crossing the English Channel in the 19th Century, the Atlantic in the 1920's, heading out to St Kilda in the 1960's etc. What has changed are the techniques, the equipment and the complexity of the undertakings. The older books offer an insight into a world that has now disappeared. Waterproof shorts and homemade buoyancy aids were the order of the day. Trains whose freight cars were able to transport the kayaks to new locations and a freedom to wander virtually anywhere across the surface of the globe.

In addition to books about paddling there are a number of reviews of books which are concerned with related topics, possible subjects include lighthouses, general sports titles and historical guides.

A development in recent years has been the production of a number of DVD's about sea kayaking, both instructional and inspirational. We have attempted to review as many of these as possible.

Hopefully within this section of the site there will be something to inspire, educate and entertain everybody.