I am new to paddling and found this to be an excellent guide to getting started. Everything one needs to know about selecting a first kayak, to rolls and recoveries are included. Proper paddle strokes are discussed and every technique is illustrated along with the text. The author also focuses on safety and rescue. Appendixes include checlists for trips, kayak manufactures, equiptment sources, and organizations. Overall seems to be well written with plenty of illustrations to easily understand the concepts outlined.

The image of the boatman on a river or alone at sea sets off a whole range literary claxons. With this legacy, which naturally leads to a heightened feeling of grandeur, it is a wonder that everyone who has ever set paddle to water has not felt impelled to likewise set pen to paper in attempt to claim his place as some sort of modern Odysseus. Of course, many paddlers have, without much success. There have also been, however, a few excellent writings by boaters. The Armchair Paddler, subtitled, Adventures by Canoe, Kayak, and Raft, is a collection of these writings.

The best stories and essays in this collection are written by authors who are able to keep their ego from interfering with their story. In John Hildebrand's account of paddling the Yukon (Reading the River), he reflects on the lessons he learns from the river with such honest humility that it is impossible not to be taken in. Hildebrand's prose is just as appealing. He knows exactly which details to include so that in one well pruned sentence you are right there beside him: "The truck rocked in the wind as we parked above a beach littered with tethered skiffs and dogs curled in the mud."

In "The Starship and the Canoe," Kenneth Bower nearly disappears from his own narrative. As he describes the first kayakers, the Aleuts and Eskimos, who "practice ten different rolls to meet ten different contingencies at sea" and can repair broken boats at sea, he has sense enough to step quietly out of the text. While Whit Deschner remains flamboyantly visible in his story, he is ready and able to laugh at himself. In an excerpt from "Travels with Kayak," we get to see the rivers of Pakistan through the eyes of a roguish humorist. Deschner leads up to his tale with a discussion of junk mail: "In the return, stamped envelopes into which I was supposed to merrily deposit my checking account, I instead stuffed rat droppings. I added the following advice. 'The enclosed feces are from laboratory rats that may have been used in experiments involving highly contagious diseases. When you are through washing your hands please delete my name from your mailing list.'"

Unfortunately, The Armchair Paddler does not succeed in entirely separating the flotsam from the jetsam. There are several stories written by hands more accustomed to a pair of oars than a keyboard. More obnoxious is the rare piece whose subject is simply a veil for the author's proclamation of his own heroism. But these are in the minority and though they do not reach the bar set by the other writers, they will interest those involved in the sport.

The Armchair Paddler introduced me to several excellent unknown authors but it also has its share of famous writers. There are essays by Wallace Stegner, John McPhee, Eric Sevareid and an excerpt from James Dickey's seminal Deliverence. The book is broken up into seven sections: Beginnings, Big Drops, The Far North, The Grand Canyon, Journeys Abroad, Out to Sea, and Preserving our Rivers with four to seven pieces addressing each topic. It's a book that any paddler will enjoy.

To dub me green when it comes to the travel-writing genre - not to mention trekking beyond the borders of the United States - admittedly qualifies as an understatement. Especially when jaded notions of exploring the world around me are relegated to the obligatory business trip every other week compounded with the daily bump and grind of inching through St. Louis traffic. Indeed, the time is opportune for escape. And it was with "Lonely Planet . . . On the Edge" that I initiated a fresh journey into unexplored literary terrain.

Critically, I possess no frame of reference to compare the contributions to this anthology with those writings outside it - after all, what is good travel writing and what is poor travel writing to someone who has never read travel writing? That being said, I was pleased to discover "On the Edge" provided a fantastic release from the tedium of the mundane, whether or not my body eventually traverses these same grounds as my mind so vividly did with this collection.

With 33 respected and well-seasoned authors jam-packed into a book numbering less than 230 pages, the entries are bound to be compact and succinct, a fitting vehicle for the essential lunchtime retreat or the bedtime ritual of winding down. Not to mention the benefits it provides the "toilet traveler," usurping bathroom breaks to sneak in 10-minute peeks into the perceived eccentricities of our global neighbors, near and far.

"Lonely Planet . . . On the Edge" whisked me around the world and to the moon and back again. And, if I understand travel writing in general and this book in particular, isn't that the point?