The New England coast, a small cruising sloop, warm winds - and Anthony Bailey's seductive storytelling powers. Lochinvar sails the waters between eastern Long Island and the tip of Cape Cod, poking into deep harbors and shallow ponds, anchoring off fashionable resorts and in remote coves, encountering the rough and the smooth, and exploring, as is Bailey's way, the present life of the coast while keeping a perceptive eye on the past. The Coast of Summer is an account of a season afloat into which is woven an autobiography of half a lifetime sailing New England waters. It portrays a number of unusual men and women - friends, acquaintances, and chance-met strangers - who live on these shores. Not least, it is an often amusing and sometimes touching record of how Bailey and his wife, Margot, struggle to coexist aboard Lochinvar, the nomadic home from which, by the end of summer, they are loath to come ashore. For the armchair sailor, this book will be as gratifying as a full-sail breeze. To practical yachting people, it offers modestly but enticingly the fruits of much hard-won and not always heroic experience. And for readers curious about the bays and the sounds, the Cape and the islands (including Shelter, Gardiners, Fishers, Block, Prudence, the Elizabeths, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket), The Coast of Summer provides dramatic dips into history and personal incursions into contemporary high-season life. It amply demonstrates Bailey's ability to evoke wind and water, the way of a boat, and the lively interactions of individuals who depend upon the coast. Richly descriptive and only occasionally delivering barrages of sailing terminology that will befuddle the uninitiated, this is a wonderfully evocative look at the author's explorations around the southern coasts of New England and Long Island. Englishman Bailey (Major Andre, LJ 6/15/87) tells of spending summers sailing about the watery nooks and crannies of the historically and geographically rich (and, in some cases, "wealthy rich") coastal regions of New England along with his wife. What is most impressive, as conveyed by the easy, pleasant writing style, is the diversity of the Baileys' seagoing experiences. They also seem to know the most interesting people, which, added to the whole, makes this an entertaining and educational travel book. Whether writing about Plum Island, New York; Point Judith, Rhode Island; Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, or myriad other places, Bailey makes the reader yearn to be there. Highly recommended for New England public libraries and for any libraries where good travel/sailing books are shelved. David M. Turkalo, Social Law Lib., Boston Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. In prose as gentle as the breezes that push his craft, Bailey (The Outer Banks, 1989, etc.) tells of his summer voyage aboard the good ship Lochinvar, coasting along a piece of New England. The design of Bailey's sailing journey was straightforward: Cruise, anchor, explore, then cruise on. Heading out from his once home port of Stonington, Conn., he angles south to Long Island and then northeast to his turnaround at Provincetown on Cape Cod. He and his wife are in no hurry as they do a slow crawl through the islands--Shelter and Gardiners, Fishers and Block, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard--with many a landfall in between. Although Bailey clearly loves sailing, and does a lyrical job of summoning salt, sea, and air--not to mention halyard, mainsheet, and jib--he is really in his element when he steps on terra firma. He putters around, pokes his nose into the quotidian, then laces it with history, geography, and biography (of the area's historic families, and of his pals) to give a real measure of the place. Bailey pulls you right to his side on a most amiable walking/boating tour: an inspired guide in a fascinating locale with a rich past. The book is not all drowsy idyll, as there are a number of close shaves with other boats and a visit from Bob, 1991's lulu of a hurricane, which they ride out from shore. As might be expected from a product of the pre-jet-propelled New Yorker under William Shawn, Bailey's writing flashes with drollery and wit, a graceful; he's a comfortable stylist who works on the reader like a masseur. From the shoals of Madaket to Sow and Pigs reef, Bailey wraps the reader up in this highly entertaining sea passage. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Armchair sailors and practical yachting people will treasure this account of half a lifetime spent on the waters of New England.