Geography Books

This book provided a bounty of knowledge and interesting facts. A great book to keep around for reference.

This is a book of poems, written by James Stevenson. It would be an excellent choice to use to introduce a unit on poetry in the classroom. There are all types of poetry contained in this book.

You will, I believe, be fascinated by the side-by-side comparisons of photographs taken in 1923 and 1991, and the remarkable degree of change or lack of change in many of them over the span of 68 years. If you have run the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, or hiked it extensively, you will undoubtedly recognize many of the river and rock features that are depicted in this relatively slim volume (167 pages). A favorite of mine is plate 17, Nankoweap Ruins, taken high above the river. This must be one of the most photographed scenes in the Grand Canyon below the rim, and I know that many river runners have their own shot of this same down-river vista in their personal photo albums. There are 45 sets of photographs in the book, and each set comes with a description of the shot, any significant changes that may have occurred, and other information useful for appreciating the photographs.

The authors achieved a nice balance between text and photos, and provided informative historical summaries of both Grand Canyon river running and the 1923 Birdseye Expedition that produced the original photos. Of possible interest to reader/photographers are overhead maps of locations of all of the shots. With the maps yet more "rephotography" can take place in coming years.

If you love the Grand Canyon, especially at river level, I think you'll love this book.

If you were to think that Canyonlands National Park was near the Grand Canyon in Arizona that would be a reasonable assumption, but wrong. The park is actually in Utah, but within its 527 square miles the Green River meets up with the Colorado, the river that formed the Grand Canyon. While water and wind have carved out Canyonlands National Park in a similar way to the Grand Canyon, what I am most reminded of when I see the color photographs of the distinctive rock formations such as the Doll House, Turks Head, and Candlestick Tower is Monument Valley (you know, the one where John Ford was forever shooting movies starring John Wayne). As David Petersen points out on the first page of this New True Book, this is a park where you will not find any restaurants, motels, or souvenir shops. All you will find are strange rock formations.

Petersen looks at how the shallow sea that was once the Canyonlands became layers of sand and animal shells that became sandstone and limestone, which over millions of years have been eroded and shaped into distinctive rock formations. With an attempt to have the photographs match up with the specific points under discussion, Petersen tries to cover all of the elements that have resulted in such different formations as large holes and arches. I appreciate the fact that Petersen admits that sometimes you need a good imagination to see some of the things in these arches that gave them their names, but the photographs of Angel, Wedding Ring, Washer Woman, and Wooden Shoe arches clearly look like their names.

The rest of the book is devoted to the three areas carved out by the two rivers: the Needles, south of the Colorado; Island in the Sky between the two rivers; and the Maze to the west of the Green River. Along the way Petersen covers the wildlife native to the park, and touches on some of the things you can do to when you visit the park, such as river boating. The last chapter is specifically devoted to your trip to Canyonlands, covering the Native Americans who lived there and left rock art and driving home the fact that many areas of the park can only be visited by hikers since there are few paved roads.

There are enough photographs of the western wonderland of Canyonlands National Park to get you interested in actually visiting the place. The back of the book includes a glossary of Words You Should Know from "ancient" to "wonderland" along with an Index. Petersen, who has updated this volume for the True Books: National Parks series, has written about just about every national park along the Rocky Mountains that you can name. This particular book goes into more detail than most on exactly how nature carved out the Canyonlands, so it should be helpful to students researching how rock formations are made, whether here or elsewhere.

This book caught my eye at Pearl Harbor on my first significant visit to Hawaii a few weeks ago. Had to order it as soon as I got home. Outstanding digest of Cook's lifetime of exploration. Excellent format with its mixture of concise narrative and outstanding maps. Fascinating "read", I couldn't put it down. Excellent level of detail -- enough to be truly educational -- not so much as to overload. Emotionally moving to recall standing on Hawaiian soil and try to imagine the worlds meeting in the explorations of Cook's time. This book helped stitch my own experience to the history of the explorations.

This overview of Caribbean geography opens a door to a wonderful and varied area of the world. For the serious student of geology or the traveller, this book provides technical information and excellent descriptions of the islands. It also illustrates the geological differences in the region. Excellent!

This is the long awaited third book in a series that documents the complete range of Australia's Carnivorous/Insectivorous Plants. Like the two before it, the book combines short (single page) semi-botanical descriptions of each species with a high quality sketch illustrating the form and a number of colour photographs showing typical (and sometimes atypical) plants in their natural environment.

This book is not so aimed at the 'how to grow them' shelf, but, at the accurate identification of numerous Australian Drosera (sundews), etc. In this respect it is a 5* hit and a must for any CP grower. Add it to your collection NOW before the print run is sold out (I pre-ordered last year!) - Vol.s 1 and 2 are now hard to get hold of and sell at a premium and a re-print may not occur for a long time.

ONE OF THE BETTER CP BOOKS

This book is an interesting analysis of the role of race and gender in mapping expeditions and the development of cartographic technologies. Highly recommended!

What do early medical maps have to do with modern GIS maps? How can patterns of diseases from the past relate to those in modern times created by GIS? Dr. Koch is a geographer, bioethicist, and here explores relationships between medicine and mapmaking from paper-based to computer-based today. Chapters follow early epidemics, mapmaking processes and myths, public health and medical developments, and more as it examines those who made maps, cartography issues, and medical history. Plenty of charts and detail throughout.

This book has reproduced on quaity paper (the type used for photographic reproductions) some of the best maps of America made bwetween 1500-1800. A good introductory section reviews the history of cartography and provides examples of various aspects of early maps. Very enjoyable and interesting.