With a gear-buying guide and hundreds of color photos, this is the clearest, most accessible instructional guide available—for paddling on ponds, lakes, rivers, or oceans.

Knack Kayaking for Everyone is the most visually driven and yet informative guide to every aspect of an aquatic sport whose popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. The first chapters comprise an idea-packed buying guide to kayak design, kayak features, accessories, and gear. The book then presents step-by-step information on transporting, launching and landing, basic and advanced strokes, techniques, navigation, rescues, and expedition planning. In addition, it fully explores recreational (flatwater) kayaking, whitewater kayaking, and sea kayaking, providing instructions for each. Ideas for fun and games and special paddlers (children, the elderly, the handicapped) are also included, as are chapters on weather and first aid.

Chess is a refreshing pastime for most players, and an all-encompassing obsession for a few. And yet much of chess literature—heavy on notation, low on useful illustrations, frustrating for the beginner—is directed at those already in the know. Knack Chess for Everyone provides an alternative: a clear, understandable, and fun entry into chess that doesn’t ignore the complexities and challenges. Photographs of actual game boards, often paired with a diagram, represent the perspective of the player looking at the pieces. The book clearly explains the rules of play and movement of pieces, and then gradually introduces various tactics and strategies.

Knack First Aid covers the most common injuries and illnesses, how to recognize them, how to manage them and, when appropriate, how to prevent them.

Featuring 450 step-by-step, full-color photos, the book first establishes training basics, and then shows how to enhance core training sessions with classic tricks as well as advanced obedience games; agility training; jumping, retrieving, and digging tricks; flashy frisbee tricks—and useful tricks such as finding the remote, retrieving the newspaper, and cornering the cat.

Bridge is a famously challenging card game, one that’s next to impossible to learn without a whole host of visual aids. But books on the subject all too often seem to ignore this. Enter Bridge for Everyone, which takes a step-by-step, visual approach to explaining the game clearly to beginners and intermediates. With 400 full-color photos, it begins with the rules and the fundamentals of bidding, play, defense, and scoring. Not only does it give you what it takes to hold your ground no matter what your hand, it then takes the bidding up a notch by introducing more techniques—and strategies for winning.

The Florida Keys Paddling Atlas, a first of its kind detailed color atlas of the Florida Keys, from Key Largo to Key West, is specifically designed for paddlers, fly fishers, snorkelers, and other small craft water enthusiasts interested in shallow water exploration. Color charts for this atlas are fully annotated with key put-ins, take-outs, paddle friendly marinas, hidden waterways, bird watching, fishing spots, surf spots, and more. Other narrative information, including descriptive commentary, natural history, flora and fauna, and points of interest will be presented and referenced in order to guide water travelers on their own excursions and adventures.