If you seriously want to know the science of the subject, this book won't really do the trick, it was printed twenty years ago, before the invention of much of the equipment in use today, although it will still give you a grounding in the topic - provided that you are of an academic bent - but it really isn't a quick simplification of the topic for the layman, it was intended as a textbook for student navigating officers and radio/electronic officers. 

It is certainly fascinating and worth taking a look at if you are on the brink of purchasing an electronic navigating system and wondering how you will be able to understand the gobbledy-gook the salesman may decide to employ - or indeed the whole business of navigating electronically. 

Marine Electronic Navigation is quite a useful book for those interested in the background to the electronic wizardry of today. Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in London, Boston and Henley.

This book was created to assist those studying for the Yachtmaster Offshore Certificate and is an excellent volume of practical and technical knowledge which, quite rightly, is prefaced by the admonition that there is no substitute for experience. 

This said, the experience is a lot easier to assimilate if you understand what it is you are experiencing and this book will certainly help you to do that.  

Ours is the 1981 edition ( the subject presumably  hasn't changed greatly since then, only the means of working with it) and there have doubtless been many later editions. Highly recommended, whether you plan to go for your Yachtmaster's or not. 

Published by the Royal Yachting Association in association with David & Charles of Newton Abbot, London and North Pomfret (Vt), Navigation - An RYA Manual is available through Amazon.

We  found this book both fascinating and instructive - even to those who have always studied nature's signs, it gave new knowledge and insights - the section on sea-birds and their habits has made our ocean voyaging that much more interesting. 

Harold Gatty was born in Campbelltown, Tasmania on 5th January 1903 and died suddenly at his home in the Fiji Islands just after completing the book, in 1957, as though his purpose were fulfilled. Indeed, to have left the world the legacy of this book is to have achieved more than most of us can ever hope to. 

Nature hasn't changed that dramatically in the last 40-odd years, ours is the 1983 re-print and the contents were then, and still are, as relevant as ever. Highly recommended.

We are pretty sure that Finding Your Way Without Map Or Compass, available through Amazon, is a reprint with a slightly changed title.

More than 50 articles taken from past issues of Sail Magazine, spanning a decade to 1982, and most of which is as true today as ever it was or will be - the only things that seem to us to have changed dramatically are the electronic innovations which are, after all, only ways of reading, interpreting and analysing the signs, they don't alter the subject itself. 

The weather patterns of the world have changed a bit, in that the annual cycles of weather pattern seem to be temporarily or permanently altered in most places - this simply means one has to be prepared for any kind of weather at any time. Well, as The Skipper always says:  "One should be ready for anything or stay home by the fire, friend". 

The types of other people driving boats have changed a bit - some newcomers to the boating world do seem to have no idea of the common courtesies of the sea (or some of the 'rules of the road', come to that) but we have a feeling there are still more of those ashore than out here... The Best Of Sail Navigation may help to put the topic of navigation in a different perspective for other ordinary folks like us...

If every reader tells us about just one book (the more the merrier) all our readers will get to hear about books they might not otherwise have known existed and had the chance to enjoy - why not drop us a line, with at least the book's title, name of the author and ISBN details, and preferably with your description of the reason you feel the book is worthy of inclusion in the library... Don't wait to see if anyone else bothers - they may be waiting to see if you do!