Bert and I for Kids of All Ages: Tales from Down East
Down East Books, $10.95
When Down East Books teamed up with Bert and I, Inc., for a second printing of the original "Bert and I" last November ($10.95), it was a joy to read and chortle anew at the Bluebird II and other classic stories, first published in 1981. The book is a compilation of 14 stories selected from five recordings made in the late 1950s by the late Marshall Dodge and his fellow Yaley, Robert Bryan. I am happy to report that these very special examples of regional humor have remained untarnished by time. As Earl Brechlin says in the second edition, "the secret of Bert and I lies in the Maine mystiqueÉnever intended to be a parody of Maine life, but a celebration of it." Yep, and a great antidote to cold weather blues.

The New Saturday Night at Moody's Diner
Down East Books, $15.95
Tim Sample performed with Marshall Dodge in the early 1980s and, fortunately, is still around to crow about it. With humor that is clearly influenced by his association with his idol, he continues to tell his Maine stories in his Maine accent to enthusiastic audiences, and even his early books are still in print.

"The New Saturday Night at Moody's Diner," an expanded second edition of the first "Moody's Diner" (1985), with an introduction by Stephen King, was published in 1996. King prefers Sample's take to Dodge's, pointing out that Sample "has accurately set down the stories and the voices of his home place, he has made them universal, and he has captured our own unique version of humorous storytellingÉ[just] stick your nose in here, chummy, turn a few pages, and see if you don't agree."

Rowing to Latitude
North Point Press, $24
On her vacations from being an avalanche expert in Alaska, Jill Fredston rows the rivers and seas of the arctic. "Our boats don't allow much insulation from the environment. They force us to be absorbed by it." You can read this book sitting in your driveway in a sleet storm and still feel warm. Fredston isn't just a jock, rising to the impossible physical challenges of an extreme climate. She thinks clearly and deeply about how she lives and why. "For us (she rows her 20-foot boat with her kayaking husband), the value of travel is in the knowledge that when we go home we will not return to exactly the same point." Read a full review

The Wooden Nickel
Little Brown and Co., $23.95
"The Wooden Nickel" is an in-your-face novel about a Maine lobsterman, Lucky Lunt, whose life is so screwed up you hesitate to turn the page to find out what disaster is next on his ill wind's agenda. Lucky plows along, however, and keeps his reader rooting for him until the last word in the book, where there's just the hint of an inkling that things may not be quite so screwed up in his future, but then again, maybe they will. Great winter reading Ð somebody way worse off than you, and spring isn't really that far off. Read a full review

Three recent books with New England roots belong on your nautical bookshelf or your Christmas list. Buy them in hardcover, because you'll want to hold on to them for a long time.

After the Storm
International Marine, $24.95
Haunted by his experience in the tragic 1979 Fastnet Race, in which he was a participant and about which he wrote a yachting classic, "Fastnet Force 10," John Rousmaniere explores several sea tragedies and their aftermaths in "After the Storm." Some of these we are familiar with, like the sinking of the sidewheeler Portland in 1898, while others will be new to most readers, like the loss of several members of the Ames family during a race from Marblehead to Norway in 1935. The stories are not just chosen for wow factor, though there's plenty of that. Rather, Rousmaniere has chosen a scholarly approach, selecting incidents that are accessible through documentation or survivors' testimony so that he can explore the factors that led to the tragedies and the toll on both victims and, especially, survivors. This book represents a huge undertaking. Rousmaniere pulls it off beautifully.

A Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast
Diamond Pass Publishing, $54.95 hardcover; $42.95 softcover
What Hank and Jan Taft started in 1988, Curtis Rindlaub has improved upon in this fourth edition. He is a worthy inheritor of the Taft guide, attuned as he is to the unique qualities of Downeast cruising and possessing a good ear for the kind of anecdote that makes a guide a good read as well as an indispensable resource. Much of what Rindlaub has brought to the guide comes from personal experience cruising and exploring with his family. He gets a lot of help from fellow cruisers who send in their reports from the field. Don't pay too much attention to the rating system, since it may lead you away from some places worth a visit. Read the text and make a decision based on what you see there. It would be foolish to cruise the Maine coast without this guide aboard. New editions come every five years or so. Go the extra money for the hardcover, because this book is going to get heavily used.

Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook
International Marine, $49.95
Nigel Calder, another Maine author, has earned a position as the guru of the cruising crowd with his numerous articles in the boating mags, his cruising guides to Cuba and the Caribbean, and his books on marine electronics, refrigeration and diesel engines. How he manages to write all he does and still have time to sail or even eat is hard to imagine. Clearly, though, this guy knows a lot about a lot of things and has saved a lot of cruisers' butts when some piece of equipment or other has failed. In fact, Calder knows so much that sometimes he forgets how little the rest of us know and dives into something like LED lighting in such detail that many readers will have to go over it several times. The "Cruising Handbook" is his most ambitious work yet, incorporating a lot of the technical stuff of his previous works with helpful advice on selecting boats, anchoring, sailing, and offshore work. Others have tried, but none has created a work that's as comprehensive and accessible as this.

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