The year is 1968. After spending the first half of summer vacation driving her Italian family crazy with her fake southern accent, 10-year old A.J. finds a soul mate on the other side of the island to divert her attention. She is intrigued to learn that Danny shares her same burning desire to know God and realizes that few people her age think as deeply as the two of them do. However, the depth of their newfound faith and friendship is soon tested when Danny's father betrays his wife. Set in a simpler time, Saving Sailor is a heartwarming tale of how hearts can change and relationships can be restored with God's help.

Saving Sailing makes an eloquent case for the revival of family sailing -- and similar uses of free time for lifelong pastimes that enrich our lives. The issue: participation in sailing is declining in America, down more than 40% since 1997 and 70% since 1979. In this wide-ranging book, researcher and avid sailor Nicholas Hayes explains why. The book shows how pressures on free time have increased, and how, in response, many Americans have turned to less rewarding forms of passive or overly structured activities and away from lifelong, family-based, multi-generational recreation. Saving Sailing builds a case for choosing how to spend free time better, seeking quality experiences with families and friends through lifelong pastimes like sailing. The main challenge, he suggests, is to develop an active system of mentoring, especially between generations. The lessons are broader than sailing, with useful ideas for all parents, for anyone seeking to strengthen the social fabric of American communities, and for those involved in programming for youth and adult activities. Author Nick Hayes is a market researcher and partner at the consulting firm FiveTwelve Group, and is active in the Milwaukee sailing scene. He has studied sailing, sailors, and sailing clubs for years, and interviewed more than 1,200 sailors worldwide since 2003 for this book. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Great expectations developed from Hollywood movie dreams ("imagining our lives, instead of living them") are inevitably shattered by disappointing and betraying real-life relationships. The bittersweet and ironic evocations of the failed loves of her life make this among the most moving, as well as revealing, of Ms. Wakoski's books.

EYES UNDER THE WATER When Steve Waterman left home in 1964, he was looking for the most exciting job the U.S. Navy had to offer. So Waterman became an underwater photographer, joining an elite group that numbered only fifteen men in the entire navy--men always on call for unusual and interesting assignments. Yet it was the time Waterman spent in Vietnam with Underwater Demolition Team 13 that deserves special respect. Existing in a state of adrenaline driven alertness, UDT-13 men carried out their harrowing missions. Stealthily, silently, they crept through Vietnam's waterways, never knowing if the next bend in the river concealed VC patiently waiting to spring a fiery, murderous ambush. Employing the wit and unvarnished honesty that got him into trouble more than once during his thirteen years in the navy, Waterman unfolds a compelling tale of an ordinary sailor who chose to serve his country during one of the most controversial, challenging times in its history.

Vigorous and highly readable, this portrait of the enlisted man's life aboard the U.S. battleship California depicts the devastation at Pearl Harbor from the hazardous vantage point of the open "birdbath" atop the mainmast.