If ever there was a woman in a man's job, this is it! The author spent six years -- until shore-bound by the birth of her first child -- in the world of commercial mariners, first as cook and deckhand, then as licensed mate on oceangoing tugs. Two weeks before their marriage, her husband became captain of a coastal tug. A month later, she joined him on a short run on the upper Chesapeake Bay. Although she had been aboard tugs before, this was different, "like the first taste of a drug -- intoxicating, seemingly harmless, but the beginning of a slowly growing addiction."The book initiates the reader into the beauty and romance of life on the water combined with the exhausting, dangerous work. Robson relishes the incredible closeness to Nature: whales, porpoise so close she could nearly touch them and birds that come into the galley to watch her making bread, as well as the magnificent spectacle of a sunset on a clear winter's day as it glows behind a black network of bare-branched trees along the shore. She also endures the fear of being maimed or lost overboard, the male opposition, and the drudgery, collapsing more than once in icy, sodden clothes into an unmade bunk. On seagoing trips that ranged from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod, from Maine to Florida, to Bermuda, New Orleans and Mexico, she felt the frustrations of failure but also the tremendous exhilaration of success. It's a world that many imagine what it would be like to share in all its adventurous, terrifying glory though few actually experience. Robson brings that world alive and takes you along for every hard-won but glorious nautical mile. This book is for anyone who every imagined running away to sea, for every woman who wonders what it would be like to live a real-life adventure romance, for every man who relishes the outdoors, and for everyone who loves a good yarn.

Woman in the Wheelhouse

Biographies & Memoirs

Robson, Nancy Taylor

Community & Culture

Cornell Maritime Pr/Tidewater Pub

A Love Like No Other -- passion, heartbreak, scandal and triumph. Abigail and John Adams endured it all.  They may have lived 200 years ago but their love affair was as modern as any today.  They married in 1764 against both their mothers' wishes. Passionate, independent and determined, Abigail bore John six children and struggled to raise, educate and launch them while he struggled to launch a career and a new nation. An uncommon partnership in any time.  During the months and years apart, Abigail suffered the fears of any woman not only for her lover’s safety but his fidelity, then drank in the passion of his homecomings. On her own with small children during the Revolution, she scraped together enough to pay the taxes only to have Congress renounce the currency, forcing her to start all over again from nothing.  Though she was John’s advisor and trusted partner -- she single-handedly ran the family farm, bought and sold land, invested the meager profits and bartered for their sons’ school fees while he was away -- he ignored her when she demanded the right of women to vote. Proud of her lineage, she was faced with her family’s shame. Worse, she was forced to watch helplessly as two of her children ended their lives in squalor on the eve of her ‘Dearest Friend,’ John’s, greatest triumph.  John and Abigail’s lives and times  -- like ours -- were tumultuous, demanding and uncertain. Abigail’s concerns, particularly, are as modern as those of any woman today - retaining her own identity while sacrificing for her family, maintaining a loving, faithful marriage despite temptations to shatter it, raising children in the face of dangers and pitfalls, and finding the money to make it all work.   A Love Like No Other is a timeless story of struggle, ambition, heartbreak and triumph, but most of all it’s the story of an enduring love against all odds.

A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, A Modern Love Story

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Seventeen-year-old Bailey Kraft knows where he is going. He will "follow the water" and become a waterman like his father, grandfather, and generations of men before him. The work is backbreaking and often dangerous yet framed by the breathtaking beauty of the Chesapeake; it is a bred-in-the-bone life. But it is also a dying livelihood. Fish stocks are plummeting and with them, the harvests. Watermen, unable to earn a living, are being forced to give up their time-honored way of life. Yet Bailey is a Kraft---river royalty---with the Kraft gift for finding fish coded into his genes. He has a sense of purpose and belonging, until the day his father shatters his lifelong plans. Suddenly, he must fight the people he loves most, including his best friend, to hang on to his birthright. Set on the Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore, Course of the Waterman is the coming-of-age story of Bailey Kraft; his tough and determined little sister, Hannah; his best friend, Booty; and Booty's bitter, alcoholic father, Tud. Bailey faces fear, loss, and wrenching changes; yet amidst it all, he glimpses the unexpected possibilities that life can offer.

Course of the Waterman

Contemporary

River City Pub

Nancy Taylor Robson is one of the first women in the country to earn a US Coast Guard license. She grew up sailing and building boats with her father and worked as a housepainter, desk clerk and yacht maintenance person while in college. After earning a degree in history, she married and went to work alongside her husband as cook/deckhand on an old 85-foot tugboat. The fear of being maimed or lost overboard, the male opposition, and the drudgery during seagoing tours that ranged from Maine to Florida, Bermuda, New Orleans and Mexico was coupled with romantic sunsets, a ringside seat on nature and an appreciation for hard won accomplishment. Robson, one of a handful of women who paved the way for every intrepid woman who has followed, brings that world alive. Author of numerous articles and essays, Nancy Taylor Robson is also the author of two novels: Course of the Waterman and A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, A Modern Love Story.

Woman in The Wheelhouse

Head to Wind

What matters most when someone close to you has been diagnosed as terminal? Time and quality of life for both of you. Coping with both the practical and emotional questions of this challenging passage. We are all going to die one day, yet every death is individual -- as is the walk toward that individual death both for the one leaving and for the ones they leave behind. Focusing on what truly matters between human beings while taking care of the business of living at the end of life is what this book is about. This book offers: * Practical tips for coping with the physical changes that will impact both the person and the caregiver emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually* Advice on what to put in place before the person dies to make things a little easier for those they leave behind* The stories and examples of others to let people know they are not alone * Advice and tips for those who are not going to be primary caregiver, but whole are friends, neighbors, colleagues or any other part of the relationships we all share in life.There is no perfect way to walk through this time in life. (There's no perfect way to walk through all of life for that matter). But there are good ways to do it. Focusing on what matters while taking care of the practical business of living and dying can make this walk slightly less scary and more rewarding for everyone. How to use this book: *Browse the chapter headings.*Skip around in the TIPS for ways to approach or solve specific problems. *Search the Sources lists at the end of the chapters for additional information on a question or need. *Read the stories of others' experiences. For the co-worker, the friend and the neighbor, this book offers advice and helpful hints on what to say or do as well as what not to say or do. For the loved one, spouse, and relative it's a practical guide to what you might expect at each stage and offers realistic and reasonable coping strategies. It includes examples born of the experience of a range of people -- professionals in the field as well as no-professionals like yourself -- of what you might experience on this difficult journey. Yet, as we've said, each death is individual just as are the relationships, personalities and personal dynamics involved in each death. Despite the individuality of experience, there are also issues and threads that are universal in human life. This book can act as a practical guide, an encouraging friend, and support, and offers hope for the best possible experience as you help to walk someone home. Across America, 43.5 million people, (nearly one in five adults) care for a loved one 50 or older according to AARP.

OK Now What? A Caregiver's Guide to What Matters

Collins RN, Sue

Religion & Spirituality

Passion, heartbreak, scandal and triumph. Abigail Adams endured it all. Their love affair was as modern as any today. Abigail bore John six children and struggled to raise, educate and launch them while he struggled to launch a career and a new nation. An uncommon partnership in any time. During the months and years apart, Abigail suffered the fears of any woman not only for her lover's safety but his fidelity, then drank in the passion of his homecomings. On her own with small children during the Revolution, she scraped together enough to pay the taxes only to have Congress renounce the currency, forcing her to start all over again from nothing. Though she was John's advisor and trusted partner -- she single-handedly ran the family farm, bought and sold land, invested the meager profits and bartered for their sons' school fees while he was away -- he ignored her when she demanded the right of women to vote. Proud of her lineage, she was faced with her family's shame. Worse, she was forced to watch helplessly as two of her children ended their lives in squalor on the eve of her 'Dearest Friend,' John's, greatest triumph. John and Abigail's lives and times -- like ours -- were tumultuous, demanding and uncertain. Abigail's concerns, particularly, are as modern as those of any woman today - retaining her own identity while sacrificing for her family, maintaining a loving, faithful marriage despite temptations to shatter it, raising children in the face of dangers and pitfalls, and finding the money to make it all work. A Love Like No Other is a timeless story of struggle, ambition, heartbreak and triumph, but most of all it's the story of an enduring love against all odds.

Historical

Head to Wind Publishing

Ok Now What?: A Caregiver's Guide to What Matters

Collins, Sue

Parenting & Relationships

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