Environment and Nature Books

A very detailed look at a beautiful area of the world. The writing makes you feel like you have been there. Lots of research in this one. Relax and enjoy the get-away.

Discount this review as you will; I must confess that I've known Jack for a number of years... Nonetheless, it's a beatutiful work. While some reviewers have compared him to Thoreau, I wouldn't go that far. But his love for the small deails of an eccosystm comes through exquisitly. As the title implies, Jack cronicles his frequent trips to Soldiers's Delight, a sort-of protected park near his home. It includes the geologic history of the area, as well as the history of human impact. And does a good job of riding the line between science and simple love for a place on the planet. It's clear to the reader that Jack loves the place, and his detailed, but not judgemental, descriptions of everything from the beauty of salamanders to piles of junk put you there. Maybe Jack isn't the next Thoreau. This book makes me think more of Hemmingway. A sort of restrained exuberance, and an economy of language that takes the reader into a place worth seeing. --del

He reads this book over and over again. Beautiful illustrations and lots of detailed information about the Brazilian rainforest.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the rain forest and poison dart frogs for children. The story takes you through the life of a strawberry poison dart frog (my daughter Jessie's favorite frog) from egg to adult. The story is excellent and the pictures are fantastic! I have been to La Selva twice so I can say that the story and pictures are realistic. A picture quiz at the end of the book will keep your eyes open for other rain forest wildlife living in the pictures of this wonderful book. I instruct environmental education programs and use this book often. Enjoy!

From Joy Harjo - Mvskoke poet, musician, writer

"Any full portrait of a society -- and the Sonoita Plain is a society: of
lands, plants, skies, creatures (including humans) -- must be artful,
lyrical, factual, historical, mythical, insightful and inspiring.This
is a tremendous order -- and it's all here in this beautiful marriage of
text and photographs."

From John W. Donaldson - Rancher & recipient of the 2003 Western Heritage Award, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

"Carl and Jane Bock's book Sonoita Plain is a superb
comprehensive and informative piece of work. Anyone who is interested in the
environmental intricacies of Southern Arizona's grasslands would do well to
read this book and keep it close by for future reference."

Established in 1968 by the Appleton family and now part of the National Audubon Society's sanctuary system, the Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch is a tract of 8,000 acres on the Sonoita Plain of southeastern Arizona. This is land that has been left alone for the past 35 years. There has been no dam building, fire fighting, grazing, pest control, and no commercial or agricultural development of any kind. Co-authored by Carl and Jane Bock, Sonoita Plain: Views From A Southwestern Grassland showcases and highlights the ecosystems of the Sonoita Valley and the Research Ranch. Enhanced with the superb color photography of Stephen Strom, readers are informed with respect to the diverse life forms which range from towering century plants to tiny Botteri's Sparrow, the elegant Mexican pronghorn, and the humans of diverse eras and purposes that were associated with this region from ancient Clovis big-game hunters to border crossers seeking entrance into the U.S., to nature loving tourists come to see and experience what the Sonoita Valley has to offer. Highly recommended reading, especially for environmental activists and academicians, Sonoita Plain would well serve as a template or model for similar books on other natural environment restoration landscape projects elsewhere in the country.

The common view of deserts as "barren" places empty of life is firmly laid to rest by this excellent collection of essays. Alcock's relation demonstrates the wide variety and diversity of lifeforms found in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Plants, insects, birds and other animal life abound if you take the trouble to find them. The author is an expert at observing all this life. Better, he's adept at showing you how to follow in his footsteps to see what he sees.

"Footsteps" is the significant term in this book. Not ATVs, aircraft, nor other vehicular means, but walking quietly is the method to employ in behold ing the desert. Alcock provides examples of his techniques in researching various aspects of life. Surprising wasps in their rituals requires finesse and timing. Seemingly, he moves directly from office to landscape - one of his marking tools being a bottle of Liquid Paper. With this "paint" he can identify individual insects - male wasps and butterflies seeking mates. This technique lapses with rattlesnakes and coyotes, however.

More easily identified subjects are the palo verde trees and giant saguaro cactuses. His palo verde trees are numbered [in his memory], but the saguaros are often elusive. Not because these ancient, giant cacti are mobile, but because his urban neighbours see fit to use them for target practice. Many of his jaunts confront him with spent shells, pock-marked rocks and shattered giant cactus plants. Desert soil pockets, often the home of slumbering spade-foot toads are riven with vehicle tracks. Their passage disturbs the dormant toads who believe the noise presages water-delivering thunderstorms. Awakening, they emerge in the belief the water is signalling the time for courtship and reproduction. The disappointment is greater than simply mating deferred. It may mean the toad has expended its resources. It will dry out and expire.

In describing how the details of desert life is seen today, Alcock muses on the roots of life's processes. Why do the Tarantula Wasp and the Great Purple Hairstreak butterfly [which displays nothing visible that's purple] evolve parallel mating rituals? How can some species successfully deal with the spines of the cholla cactus when a human stuck with the spines must endure a full day's pain? Why do some bees fly in solitude while others are flock in swarms? Alcock examines these and similar questions with sound evolutionary logic. He stresses that simple or apparent solutions often require re-examination. Horned lizards only take a few ants from a nest entrance. Are they "prudent predators" saving prey for later exploitation? Alcock reflects on possibilities to arrive at a solution Darwin would have admired. As do we. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

John Alcock brings us with him on a tour of the Usery Ridge (north of Mesa, near Phoenix, Arizona) after the winter rains, but before the harsh heat of summer. The book mostly discusses evolutionary behavior of plants and animals found there. There are a few humorous passages which add an unexpected laugh. Dr. Alcock is concerned with the disappearance of the desert and its treasures.

Sonoran Desert Summer is another of John Alcock's easy to read introductions to this desert's more fascinating creatures. The reader not only gets to experience the desert inhabitants' comings and goings during a typical summer in the Sonoran Desert, he or she does it in comfort! As informative as it is entertaining, this book gives the reader valuable insights into the wonderful adaptations of some of the desert's most interesting plants and animals. Written by a biologist who can also write, this book is fun to read, easy to digest, and makes every jaunt into the desert just that much more meaningful. And, the illustrations are charming as well. All in all, a good buy whether you are a tourist or a long-time desert rat.

Taking up an Alcock book and following his desert jaunts is always a pleasure. His enthusiasm for the lands others call "bleak" invites imitation. Whatever view we hold for deserts must be reconsidered and assessed for validity when we close the final page. He shows us life where we perceive an empty terrain. Brief appearances by birds, insects, coyotes, even water catch his eye and are imparted to us. While the variety of life here is as vast as the landscape, one feature is brought into view repeatedly - the giant cactus saguro. This bizarre plant becomes a lodestone for his travels because its condition signals so much about conditions. "Sonoran Desert Summer" sounds intimidating, but Alcock shows how important this season is to life.

Reflecting the brief jaunts Alcock takes into the Sonoran, the book is a collection of essays. The topics vary from feather structure for body temperature control through insect, bird and plant reproduction to government policies on coyotes. The wealth of detail neither obscures nor is muted by the desert's vastness - an aspect of which we are reminded on nearly every page. Mountains loom on the horizon and monsoon thunderheads build on their crests, but under this Hackberry bush a small butterfly is playing out a timeless strategy for finding a mate. Alcock misses none of it, and you feel pangs of regret that he's there and you're not. Still, he reminds us, human intrusion on desert solitudes are a destructive force. The Hohokum peoples, who inhabited this area for a duration four times longer than Europeans have inhabited the Western Hemisphere, likely irrigated themselves out of existence.

Alcock, true to his role as a teacher, is full of questions. How does the Digger Bee know where to excavate to obtain a mate? Why do phainopeplas, a dark-plumaged, crested bird, nest in solitude in Arizona but in groups in California? Why do "auxiliaries" occur in some bird species? Why does the zebra-tailed lizard wave its tail, an act likely to lure predators? Alcock doesn't whip out the answers to these conundrums, but guides you through a process of examining evidence, talking about other researchers' efforts and provides you with the most likely evolutionary solution. No aspect of a species lacks an evolutionary pathway, he reminds us. We must work it out from our time and place as best we can.

What is the worth of these efforts? Do they have meaning for those of us not granted the prize of desert residence? Alcock's assessment of government policies of "pest" removal can be applied anywhere. Coyotes, despised by ranchers as despoilers of herds and by suburbanites as raiders of garbage cans, find themselves targetted for eradication. Alcock shows the short-sightedness of such policies and how to replace them with more realistic ones. Heed his warning. Humanity can't afford to lose desert life - "writing its own epitaph in the sand" along with his favoured saguro. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

We bought this book to learn more about lions in general, and increase my rancher/lion hunter husband's understanding of issues surrounding them. We were a little concerned that the angle might lean one way or another but were gratified by the balance. Well crafted and very informative. Highly recommend to any one interested in mountain lions.

I recommend this book to all persons interested in lions in the America's. It will appeal to and educate people with diverse opinions on the management of this wonderful species of cat. Mr. Shaw is not only a good biologist, he also tells it like it is, and in a well written way. I especially hope that North America's wildlife decision makers will read and heed Mr. Shaw's conclusions about lion management. This book is for the biologist, the rancher, the lion hunter, and the preservationist.

This book addresses the use of computer models in species conservation and management. It is a very informative book that will be of great value to graduate conservation biology courses, government agencies, and land managers. The book consists of a series of sections on plants, invertebrates, fish, herps, birds, and mammals. Each section has a summary chapter discussing the state of the art for that taxonomic group and a number of case studies. Some of the summary chapters, such as the amphibian and reptile chapter, are excellent. The case studies are informative and give the reader a good view of the breath of modeling studies that have been done to date. An accompanying CD provides a number of example models that the reader can use to explore the power of these procedures. I highly recommend this book.

This edited book covers conservation planning and population viability analyses in a clear and comprehensive fashion. The inclusion of chapters on plants, invertebrates, fishes, birds and mammals makes it particularly attractive for teaching students with broad taxonomic interests in conservation biology. Each chapter uses models from the software program RAMAS GIS which accompanies the book on CD. I use the RAMAS GIS software in my graduate course in landscape ecology and the material in this book provided a great diversity of data sets and case histories. The program has excellent graphics and is well documented enabling the reader to understand what models are being used and the assumptions of those models. I strongly recommend the book for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in population and conservation biology.

Of all the books my brother, Bill has written, I most love this one. SUNSTRUCK is about the area of the world on which he is an expert, a remote area of the Sonoran Desert, but more importantly, these are thought-provoking essays on life and living. Even if, like me, you don't usually read essays about the natural world I think you'll appreciate his writing style and world outlook. Bill shares anecdotes about the outdoor life, hiking, those he meets and gets to know in the desert (including la migra and people escaping the border patrol, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, bighorn sheep) that make the reader feel as if they are there with Bill at the moment of encounter.

So I hope you'll enjoy a book about a wondrous place in the world that few people visit, and even fewer understand: El Gran Desierto, the Devil's Highway. Yes, this review is written by the author's sister, but don't hold that against me. Given my proclivity to reading fiction, I might not have picked up this book if my brother hadn't written it. I am so glad I had the opportunity to enjoy his vivid use of language and to vicariously experience some of Bill Broyles' adventures in the desert.

It is officially called El Camino del Diablo-The Devil's Highway. It's also known by a variety of other names best left out of this review. It stretches for some 130 miles of desert from Sonoyta, in Mexico's state of Sonora, to Yuma, Arizona, on the Colorado River. There is precious little permanent water and ground temperatures can, and do, reach 150 degrees and more. It includes parts of two national monuments, a national wildlife refuge, and a gunnery range in Arizona not to mention various intities in Mexico. The are can be explored via foot or four-wheel drive vehicle. It can be done. It's done every year by experts and fools, lots of fools, legal and illegal. Many don't make it. It is a killer. If you are intrigued by scorpions, drug smugglers, sidewinders, bandits, illegal aliens, rattlesnakes, sand storms, unbearable heat, lack of water, a military gunnery range, and a host of other unbelievable challenges this is the trip for you. I don't know of any typical travel or guide book that will prepare you for this trip but this book comes as close as any to providing one with a sense of what to expect and when to go. It is probably the very best book ever published about this special place. The author and photographer have a knack of presenting a highly readable, visually accurate account of the dangers and beauty that await the visitor to a place noted author Charles Bowden says "...we finally get to face ourselves because we are alone with life itself." I have done this trip in a four-wheel drive vehicle and can only say be careful...very careful. This is a must read both for the armchair traveler and boots on the ground type.

When I was Reading this book i got the chills. The creative quality of the statistics and inciteful view of populations is so rad. I love this book.

I have to say that before reading this book I hated statistics and everythingto do with any type of natural sampling. But this book has changed my life! It's easy to read text and easy to follow examples have reinvigorated my love for statistical sampling. I recommend this to anyone who has any interest in statistics. It will change you life too!

If you ever wonder how tequila is made, find out what an amazing process it is. Buy this book.
Full of incredible rich photographs, that depict the everyday beauty of Mexico.

This book gave me a overview of tequila that included the agricultural considerations, cultural heritage, and history of mescal de tequila, not just a guide to making margaritas. It is well written with enough detail to satisfy the curious, yet straightforward enough to allow for the average reader. Exceptionally informative book!

Nab tis iz e bok. I'v beeen dwinkinking teakilya
far sum time and I cun say itz the bast dwink to
havb! Nah I meen et! I'b no dares Beer and Wien
bat nothfing beets Teequilla,NOFING! It iz dat
dwink tht calhmsz da nerves and makez ya feel
mo relaxed. Dake it for me thot Ttequila wil
bwing good sings to youz and familee and it
can mak ya feeel whandarfol...YOO HERE VE!