In his second work in a trilogy involving the Celtic identity, Watkins mingles poetry, history, and song with tall and true tales of his adventures in the Scottish Highlands. Whether shanghaied on a ship to the Arctic Circle, hunting for gold in the mountains, sinking a docked barge, shooting the breeze with ghosts at a pub, or bedazzling friends with druid magic, Watkins keeps readers on their toes as he dances us through his days and nights as a young man finding his way through the world. From the roaring seas to the verdant Scottish countryside, Watkins tackles his rugged environs with good humor and smarts on this ultimate journey of maturation and self-discovery. Bill Watkins is the author of the Book Sense best-seller A Celtic Childhood. Watkins was born in Birminghamin 1950 into a Welsh/Irish family. Both of his parents were traditional singers. He learned to play the tin whistle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, and fiddle as a youth, and has been performing ever since. As a young man he made his living on frieght and fishing ships. Watkins has won several awards for his poetry, and has contributed numerous articles to Private Eye, a satirical magazine in the U.K., and the Glasgow Herald. This is the second of a planned trilogy, the first of which explored Watkins's childhood (A Celtic Childhood, LJ 9/15/99). In this volume, we follow his adventures as a young man, first on the high seas and later in Scotland. It is no surprise that these reminiscences are more colorful in language and content, but they still contain the youthful na vet and charm that buoyed up the earlier volume. The characters and settings are vividly described in Watkins's colorful, somewhat florid style. Throughout, he skillfully intertwines history, literature, and the real world, creating an entertaining composite of "true and tall tales" in the process. The book includes a glossary (particularly helpful for the slang terms) and lyrics for some of the songs referred to in the text. An entertaining read; recommended for larger public libraries. Angela M. Weiler, SUNY at Morrisville Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Watkins' gift is as a storyteller -- Herald Sunday In Scotland Is Not for the Squeamish, Watkins deftly mingles Celtic poetry, history, and song with true and tall tales of his high-seas adventures and explorations of the Scottish Highlands. Whether being shanghaied on a trawler to the Arctic Circle, sinking a docked warship, shooting the breeze with ghosts in a pub, bedazzling friends with Druid magic, or hunting for gold in the mountains, Watkins keeps readers on their toes as he dances us through his days and nights as a young man raring to take on the world. From the "Silver City" of Aberdeen to "mystic mistress" Edinburgh to the eerie banks of Loch Ness, Watkins tackles his rugged environs with humor and smarts on this ultimate journey of maturation and self-discovery. Bill Watins was born in Birmingham in 1950 into a Welsh/Irish family. As a teenager he moved to "Sister Scotland," where he discovered "a country that's like Ireland but without the rules." He has made a living as a musician, maritime radio officer, theater lighting director, and film lighting gaffer. Watkins has also contributed numerous articles to Private Eye, a satirical magazine in the U.K., and The Glasgow Herald. He lives and entertains in Minneapolis, where he makes a weekly splash performing at local pubs. The sea is rising, sending ice-floe calves buffeting along the rows of steel rivets that hold the hull plates in place. In the half-light, the distant bergs are a circle of menacing shapes. At all points of the compass, they lie like tenacious timberwolves, waiting to strike down their prey and devour it. I shiver, not so much from the cold, but from a growing feeling of foreboding that has haunted me for the past few minutes. The night descends, morbid and malignant on the Arctic Ocean, quenching the friendly flicker of the aurora borealis. To the southwest, frozen stars vanish as treacle-thick storm clouds eat into the fanciful configurations of fabled constellations. Lone sentinel of the northern wastes, our tiny vessel is a Christmas tree of colored lights in an otherwise lightless crypt of cresting swell. I give the sea one last scan, to make sure we aren't standing into any unforeseen danger, before heading for the warmth of the wheelhouse. All I see is our own navigation lights reflecting back from the glassy mountains, like the ethereal running lights of long-gone ghost ships. I shiver again. Used Book in Good Condition