Third edition released

The third edition of Narrowboating for Beginners has just been released and is available on Amazon. It’s about 20 pages longer and all the links have been updated and switched to bit.ly. The locks chapter has been greatly expanded and there’s new information about using drones and two-way radios. The steering section has also been updated with a graphic showing how to turn in a winding hole. Similarly, the bridges and tunnels chapter has been updated. Of course, there’s an obligatory nod to the hot mess that was 2020.

I’ve also decided to remove the word “Americans” from the subtitle, which now reads: What anyone needs to know when considering a narrowboat vacation in the UK. Looking at my sales figures, people from the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Spain and Japan have bought the book, so it seemed time to drop that designation. Of course, being an American, the book is still very much from that perspective.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the third edition I had planned. My 2020 return trip to the Kennet & Avon Canal never happened, nor the giant bike ride I had planned that would have allowed me to cycle along the Thames, the River Wey, the Basingstoke Canal and the entire length of the Kennet & Avon Canal, including the navigation beginning in Bristol. I was really looking forward to exploring a non-Canal & River Trust waterway and indulging in many Jane Austen-related locations. COVID and my health permitting (I’m having knee surgery), we plan to travel the K&A in September of this year, but I won’t be able to make the bike ride.

So there may be a version 3.5 edition of NB4B and/or a separate guide to the K&A in the near future, with lots of new pictures and new insights into the pastime of narrowboating. And I hope I’ll be able to take that giant bike ride in 2022 … if my knee allows.

PS If you’ve already bought NB4B, you were entitled to download from Amazon the Kindle edition. The Kindle edition has also been updated and I hope to get Amazon to automatically update your copy. Until then, however, you can tell Amazon to update your copy. Just search for “Kindle manage my devices and content” and find the link that will take you to the appropriate page.

Also, if you bought a previous print edition of NB4B not through Amazon, I’ll be happy to send you an updated Kindle edition. Just use the information at the back of the book to contact me, or use the contact link on this website.