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Does Sally ever stop skipping?A new range of brightly coloured and imaginatively written children's picture books, which will captivate the attention of children from age 4-7 (and some adults too)! ... Read more

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What can a little girl do in the jungle? Play snap with a crocodile? Join-the-dots on a leopard's spots? Pin-the-tail on an elephant? Or just pick up a snake and skip all the way home! With its irresistible rhyme and jungly illustrations, this is a joyful, anarchic picture book from the author and illustrator of "Queen Munch and Queen Nibble". ... Read more

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Thirty-one poems by English poets about a variety of childhood experiences. ... Read more

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Spectacularific!
There are no words to describe the magnificance of this book. Simply amazing. Jesus Christ could not have done better himself. A must read for all. Thumbs up! ... Read more

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Gloria MacKay has thrown many sticks in her life, and skipped lots of stones—or at least tried. It is hard not to, loving as she does the mist enfolded, water wrapped Pacific Northwest.

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Phillip, having trouble coping with his father's imminent death, as well as his family's move from their farm to the suburbs, begins skipping school to find respite in an old, abandoned house. ... Read more

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    Descended from kings. Alpin the twenty eighth king ofScotland, a descendant of Colla-Uais the one hundred twenty first kingof Ireland and descendants of one of the four original Milesiankings. McGuffok, McPhe, Gaffny, McAuffie, each are of the samefamily. Story tellers one and all, give testimony to life, liberty andfaith. "Skipping Rock" begins with John and Ootah after a shipwreckoff Baffin Island in the late 8th century. Survival in the harsharctic and subsequent long flight to the Isle of Colansay off theScottish coast follows John and Ootah, Jerimah Alex Mac Fie, his wifeColleen, as well as their son Andrew Blackmore Mac Duffie on throughhis heir Henry Mathew Mac Guffok, passed the stories through theyears. Living as story tellers and carrying the great Claymore and oldpouch, Glen Robert and Eneca were befriended by Molly. Lawrence BruceMac Guffok with new found wealth and determination, built a smallfortune. John Robert and Maureen Mac Donald married producing twindaughters in 1576. and a son Lloyd David McAuffy in January of1601. Lloyd married Angeline, the pig farmers daughter, after a longtumultuous relationship. In 1667 their son Paul Martin McAuffe stoodat the bow of a two masted vessel bound from Glasgow to JamestownVirginia.

    Paul like the rest of his kin loved the stories and the smell of adventure. After a harrowing Atlantic crossing he awoke in the mountains of Virginia, laying in a pool of blood, memory of an explosion and the blurred vision of two half clad natives.

    Rachael rivaled Paul as an expert bowman and dressed in her red blanket, defeated all others in the biggest bow shooting contest the village had ever seen.

    In 1861 Sargent John M MacAuffe a Kentucky mule skinner for the Union Army was about to take part in one of his last battles. John married Mattie, both had scrapes with the law and raised a large family. Jacob Alexander MacAuffe, Jake, or Jack Ass MacAuffe to his friends, was born about 1866 0r 1867. Jake worked on a Mississippi steam boat. About 1893 Jake paid a handsome price for an indentured lass who worked on a Yankton South Dakota farm. It was found that they had a lot more in common than most folks would expect. Jake and Inga were married Christmas of 1895.

    Noah MacAuffe was born the 15th of July 1900 in Nome. His mother ran a boarding house while his father worked the beaches for gold. Inga passed away in 1918. Jake just left it all and boarded a steamer for the states.

    On his own, Noah sold every thing except the most prized and headed to Kaltag. He met Charlie Two Bears and his family. Dorthy, a shy girl and Noah hit it off and the two of them left Fortuna Ledge to start a life of there own. Dorthy and Noah have a son in 1935 who went on to open a flying service at age 13. Noah and Dorthy have more than one encounter with angles or spirits and are converted at their cabin above Wiseman. Noah has an encounter with a voice enticing him to write the story of his ancestors. Dorthy disappears, leaving Noah a lonely man. ... Read more

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The girls are skipping in the street and then the postman joins in, and then the milkman...too much skipping! ... Read more

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More frisbees are sold each year than baseballs, basketballs and footballs combined. Yet these familiar flying objects have subtle and clever aerodynamic and gyrodynamic properties which are only recently being documented by wind tunnel and other studies. In common with other rotating bodies discussed in this readily accessible book, they are typically not treated in textbooks of aeronautics and the literature is scattered in a variety of places. This book develops the theme of disc-wings and spinning aerospace vehicles in parallel. Since many of the examples are recreational, anyone who enjoys these activities will likely find it profitable and enjoyable. In addition to spinning objects of various shapes, several exotic manned aircraft with disc planforms have been proposed and a prototypes built – these include a Nazi ‘secret weapon’ and the De Havilland Avrocar, also discussed in the book. Boomerangs represent another category of spinning aerodynamic body whose behavior can only be understood by coupling aerodynamics with gyrodynamics. The narrative, supported by equations and graphs, explains how the shape and throw of a boomerang relates to its trajectory. The natural world presents still other examples, namely the samaras or ‘seed-wings’ of many tree species, which autorotate during their descent, like a helicopter whose engine has failed. The flight performance of these spinning wings directly affects the dispersal and thus the evolutionary competitiveness of the trees concerned. Samara-type configurations are also considered for instrumentation and other payload dispersal applications. In short, the book discusses a range of familiar, connected, but largely undeveloped, topics in an accessible, but complete, manner.

From the reviews of the first edition:

"In his fascinating book Spinning Flight, Ralph Lorenz provides a rich feast of … examples of spinning bodies … . The book is well organized … . The discussion in the book … should be accessible to readers with some elementary understanding of aerodynamic principles. For the expert, the book is full of open problems … . Its scope is extensive … . In this respect, there may be something for everyone within its attractively designed cover … ." (H. K. Moffatt, Nature, Vol. 444, December, 2006)

"If you liked physics at school, then this book is for you. It concerns itself with flying objects that spin through the air, and even tells you how to impress your friends with the biomechanics of Frisbees. … there is plenty of information at all levels, and the book has a wealth of detail that only an aerospace engineer like Lorenz could have come up with." (Len Fisher, BBC Focus, February, 2007)

Customer Reviews (2)

Spinning Flight - the fascination of things that spin in the air and in space
Spinning Flight is for the reader who is curious about spinning and flying things. Some may wonder why do skipping stones veer to the right, why does a Frisbee veer to the left at the end of its flight, why do golf balls have dimples, how does a boomerang work. Others may be interested in spin stabilization of bullets, bombs, rockets. Still others will be fascinated by the role of spin in spaceflight, the landing of probes on distant bodies or by what spin can tell about the formation and life story of asteroids and comets. Lorenz uses a minimum of vector mechanics and equations to explain these phenomena and provides many illustrations based on cleverly instrumented flight experiments. Next time you skip a stone, you will think of it as a rewarding experiment not just an idle pleasure.

Favorable Review
(I am the author - I think the book is not half bad -but let me quote from a recent
review of the book by H. K. Moffatt {whom I do not know} in Nature magazine (Vol.444,
14 Dec 2006 p.820):
'In his fascinatingbook Spinning Flight, Ralph Lorenz providesa rich feast of examples
of such spinning bodies, some occurring naturally, some contrivedfor pleasure or for a
practical purpose, someexotic..........Lorenz covers these phenomena and their various
manifestations with great skill and economy of exposition, whetting the appetite for the
more detailed treatments that he cites in an extensive list of references, many quite recent...
The book is well organized....there may be somethingfor every one within its attractively
designedcover ... Read more