Thursday, April 8, 2021

A Fair Trade Book: Sailing

Title: Sailing 

Author: Henry Beard

Date: 1981

Publisher: Workman

ISBN: 0-89480-144-9

Length: 96 pages

Illustrations: cartoons by Roy McKie

Quote: "The knowledgeable sailor does not 'get on' a boat or 'climb in' a boat--he boards a boat. And the prudent individual...remains ashore."

This is a book for people who recognize the similarities between sailing and tearing money into small pieces while standing in a cold shower, yet they "have heard the call of the sea" and enjoy sailing anyway. The book defines "deviation" as this "unnatural love of the sea." 

William F. Buckley, Jr., was known as a wit, but he recognized Henry Beard as a funnier humorist. (It was one of those lefthanded compliments. Buckley thought more of his own work was serious than many of his readers did.) He rated Sailing "the funniest book I have ever read." Meh. Some prefer Beard's Cooking, a similar "dictionary" that skewers the joys and futilities of a popular hobby. Neither book, however, should be read in any place where you can't share the joke. Both may cause coffee to be inhaled in inappropriate ways.

Born in June 1945, Beard was either the last of the war babies or the first of the baby-boomers. He is still alive so, although the badly water-damaged copy of Sailing I currently have for sale is the one to throw in if you're buying books for ten dollars a dozen, new copies are Fair Trade Books, and ten percent of the current price according to Amazon will go to Beard or the charity of his choice.

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