Individual Parks Books

This collection of poetry explores the mythical territory between nature and city, between animal and human, between contemporary culture and timeless rituals. The range of these poems is remarkable, from a moment at a restaurant in "Chinois," to a contemplation of motherhood and childlessness in "Wild Mothers," and "Artemis," to political testimony in "Toltecs" and "From Los Angeles Looking South," or homage to sexuality in "Cactus Girls." The poet lives in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, and her poems celebrate a sense of being alive in this particular landscape-a place of arroyo, billboard, rattlesnake, automobile-that is constantly changing, even in the space of an evening's drive from one place to another.

Healy has not only lived in Echo Park for a number of years, she has a strong local and literary following for her evocative writings. "Artemis in Echo Park" truly brings forth the magic and mystery of this place.

This book is beautiful; a work of art. Matthias Breiter may very well be the most knowledgeable naturalist on earth when it come to brown bears.

Buy this book for the outstanding photographs!!! I thouroughly enjoyed this book, and everytime I pick it up, I get this urge to fly to Alaska to see these magnificent creatures.

Great photography with poetic like readings. A different approach to enjoy this incredible Park. Actually comes alive. Took the book and relived some of the pictures with the readings in person. My way of enjoying nature through anothers eyes and words.

Great book with the most beautiful full page photos of Big Bend National Park that I have ever seen! Makes me want to go back right away. It was well worth the money...

The review by Mr. Fowler pretty much sums up the book. For me there isn't anyone who can capture images of Big Bend quite like James Evans. I have long been a fan of his work and have waited for this book for many years. For those who have never been to the Big Bend region this book offers a chance to be introduced to what makes it so special. It isn't just the landscapes, it is the people. Big Bend Pictures communicates to me what makes west Texas so special. To stare into these pictures allows me to travel back to the region and experience again the heat, the dry air, the clouds(good lord the clouds, just look at how he captures the clouds) and the people. Gaze into the eyes of his subjects and know what it means to live life. Big Bend is like no other place on earth and James' photographs are like no others.

The Big Bend area of West Texas is both seductive and elusive to visitors. The immense scale, loneliness and beauty of the desert scenery can immediately charm any visitor to this remote borderland, and many books have succeeded in extolling these virtues. However, the human denizens of the Big Bend can be quirky lot, with a big dose of individuality an apparent requirement for remaining in these parts for very long.
In this new large-format book, James Evans has succeeded admirably in capturing for the viewer the essence of the human dimension of this vast land. Yes there are panoramas and thunderstorms on these pages, but it's the direct and intimate portraits of the people that will capture your attention. Elderly ranchers (and ranch women), young children, Anglos, Hispanics, funerals, dances, homes, animals - all powerful and direct visual statements. Many of these scenes aren't pretty. There's grit and violence, poverty, sadness; but it's all real. Evans has spent the past 15 years living in the Big Bend (he has a studio and gallery in tiny Marathon, TX), taking time to really know his subjects, gaining their trust, opening a window of truth before his lens. As a regular visitor to these parts, I feel Evans has finally captured the real essence of this amazing region for all of us Big Bend lovers to enjoy.
There are 102 duotone photographs, most are full or double page. A real bonus is James' comments about each photograph in the rear appendix. It is there we come to understand a little more about each of his subjects, and ultimately a bit about Evans as well. And good value, too; lots of book here for the quite reasonable price. And I like the horned lizard endpapers.

Absorbing, thought-provoking, informative, well-written! Wish it was longer -- with more details about the author's experience with the gorillas in Rwanda and well as more pictures of the Primate Panorama and Cenzoo's daily activities. I've put a visit to the zoo on my travel list.

This is a must have book for anyone who loves gorillas. It chronicles the heartwarming story of a baby gorilla & his family as they travel to their new home showing how they adapt to their new environment.The book starts off with the tale of Cenzoo, the baby gorilla, who was abandoned & near dead. It details his and his families (him & mother, another female, & a silverback male) airplane adventure to their new home in a Denver zoo. The story continues to follow the lives of the gorilla family as they acclimate to their new home. There are many observations about how a gorilla's behavior differs in captivity versus in the wild. I really like how each gorilla's personality traits were described. I truly felt as if I got to know each of the gorillas. Lots of time is also given the plight of the vanishing gorillas & what is being done to help.

Incredible artistry captured in pictures. Chihuly's exhibits are scattered over the globe, if you haven't seen them in person, this book will give you a glimpse of what you are missing. I have it out on display all the time.

Artist Dale Chihuly's forty-year career continues to surprise and astound as he radically transforms perceptions about the medium of glass. In this beautifully illustrated book, you will see Chihuly's extraordinary installations at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. He has taken glass well beyond the traditional display case, out into nature itself. The brilliance of color and form of the glass, and the plants it is set among, creates a new reality within the conservatory. Long before arriving at Garfield's gate, Chihuly had been placing his work in unusual settings, often outdoors. From the canals of Venice to the historic walls of the ancient city of Jerusalem, Chihuly has worked his magic. These images, side by side with Chihuly's quotes, provide insight into the personality of this major artist, and show the wide range of his interests as well as his sense of humor.
An essay by Barbara Rose addresses Chihuly's place in art history, while the essay by Garfield Conservatory director Lisa C. Roberts provides a history of garden conservatories captured so effectively in the vintage postal cards from Chihuly's own collection that open the book). Artist Mark McDonnell explores the intriguing locations that Chihuly is drawn to and his ongoing interest in glass buildings.
2002 hardcover
15 x 9½"
192 pages, 97 color reproductions

In preparation for my upcoming trip to The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee to take photos for an article that I'm writing about these incredible animals, I purchased this book and others by Cynthia Moss. This one will help to make people aware that elephants were not created for human entertainment. The rich among us saw them as the path to greater wealth, and left dead and abused elephants in their wake. The readers of this wonderful book will see elephants as the sensitive, caring, creatures that they are and always have been. We humans could learn much from reading how they bond together and watch over their young and each other. After reading this book, I hope many do as I did. Toss a check in the mail. These people who are helping these elephants are often doing without, to better serve a cause that they're very dedicated to. The many terrific color pictures made this book come alive.
Rick Magers
author/publisher
www.grizzlybookz.com
ancientguy@alltel.net

I have fallen in love with Echo and the EB family. Ely's traumatic first days are unforgettable. I couldn't wait for The Next Generation to come out. I have definitely become an elephant fan.

Gordon Parks to Me was the Black Andy Warhol. He truly was a Man who was always Hip&Knew what was happening. He was the Pulse of Life in America.Gordon Parks captured so many things through life be it through Photo,Poems,His Films,etc... this Book captures the full beauty of life,Liberty. the Man had a Zest for so much&it comes through loud&Clear in his work. He was a true Pioneer.

Gordon Parks is a national treasure. That surely isn't news. But of all his many volumes (not to mention films, symphonies, photos, journalism, and on and on) this slender and profound volume stands alone in its fearlessness, poetic and heartbreaking beauty, and its unflinching spareness. If not for the wisdom and gravity of his words and images, one would think that the sheer spareness of this book came from a young firebrand. Timeless!

He speaks of war, peace, empathy. On a more personal note, there is love: Love of family, friends, the beauty of the world we live in despite -- and sometimes because of -- the squalor or desperate circumstances that coexist with being human.

If you never buy another Gordon Parks book, or if you just aren't up to a physically "big" book right now, treat yourself to this. It will be among one of the truly BIGGEST books you will ever luxuriate in.

Upon first opening this book, one is hit by a wonderful introduction which creates a promising beginning for the book. Unlike many books dealing with bears, this book contains good information and wonderful pictures that dazzle the eye. The ending brings all but the strong hearted to tears, as five years with Little Stony is ended abruptly. For anyone interested in letting their child read a good book about grizzly bears, with both pictures and excellent informational content, this would be the best one. The reader watches the bear grow from just a tiny cub to a large adult with the pictures allowing one to see the stages of development in a natural setting. Rick McIntyre weaves a breath taking story with his written words, letting the reader feel what Rick was feeling when those words were written. This book has truly made me interested in bears, visiting Yellowstone National Park and waiting silently at dawn in hopes that a bear would be spotted on one of the hillsides. Usually, my efforts pay off. This book makes one feel as if Little Stony and his mother were standing right in front of them, so detailed is the story and the pictures. A highly recommend book for anyone interested in seeing good pictures of grizzly bears in the wild and having good writing to accompany it. Buy this book now and I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

"It reads like a movie." -First grade student "Everyone should take time out to read this book." -Third grade student

Our class read Grizzly Cub: Five years in the Life of a Bear and absolutely loved it. It's a great source of information as well as an entertaining story. The photographs throughout the book are breathtaking and help tell the story of a curious bear named "Little Stony". -Multiage Class grades 1-3 Rainier Primary

Aaron Siskind is one of America's finest photographers and this wonderful book, shamefully out of print, shows his documentary images of residents of the real Harlem in the 1930's. If you are familiar only with Siskind's abstract photographs, these will come as something of a shock. They are beautiful, simple, elegant and filled to bursting with the pride of the people who are the subjects of Siskind's work.

The book contains images from three separate photo projects that Siskind undertook in the 30's for The New York Photo League. They were collected and exhibited by the Smithsonian (National Museum of American Art) in Washington, D.C. in 1991.

The beautifully written (almost poetic) foreword is by artist/photographer/film maker/writer/etc. Gordon Parks and is worth the cost of the book alone. There is also a well-written introduction to the photographer and his work by Marcia Battle and, most impressive is an oral history of eight of the people Siskind was immortalizing, done for the Federal Writers Project, worthy of Studs Terkel.

But it's the photographs that will stay with you: a nattily dressed old man, obviously a performer, waiting backstage for his cue to go on; a young girl, sitting on a milk can instead of a chair, eating a meal with her young mom in their kitchen under the freshly washed laundry which has been hung to dry; Jones Barber Shop (Haircut: 25 cents)comfortably sharing a brownstone on West 132nd Street with the Young Students Interdenominational Minister's Alliance right next door to May's And Johnson's Beauty School; a nude, black dancer performing for white patrons only; the proud owner of Our Own Community Grocery and Delicatessen (Milk 6 cents, Bacon 10 cents) posing in the sun in front of his shop. Every image takes us back to a specific time with very specific people. And in every image Siskind's art is very evident.

This book should not only be put back into print, it should be required in our schools. This is American history beautifully and movingly rendered. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Aaron Siskind is one of America's finest photographers and this wonderful book, shamefully out of print, shows his documentary images of residents of the real Harlem in the 1930's. If you are familiar only with Siskind's abstract photographs, these will come as something of a shock. They are beautiful, simple, elegant and filled to bursting with the pride of the people who are the subjects of Siskind's work.

The book contains images from three separate photo projects that Siskind undertook in the 30's for The New York Photo League. They were collected and exhibited by the Smithsonian (National Museum of American Art) in Washington, D.C. in 1991.

The beautifully written (almost poetic) foreword is by artist/photographer/film maker/writer/etc. Gordon Parks and is worth the cost of the book alone. There is also a well-written introduction to the photographer and his work by Marcia Battle and, most impressive is an oral history of eight of the people Siskind was immortalizing, done for the Federal Writers Project, worthy of Studs Terkel.

But it's the photographs that will stay with you: a nattily dressed old man, obviously a performer, waiting backstage for his cue to go on; a young girl, sitting on a milk can instead of a chair, eating a meal with her young mom in their kitchen under the freshly washed laundry which has been hung to dry; Jones Barber Shop (Haircut: 25 cents)comfortably sharing a brownstone on West 132nd Street with the Young Students Interdenominational Minister's Alliance right next door to May's And Johnson's Beauty School; a nude, black dancer performing for white patrons only; the proud owner of Our Own Community Grocery and Delicatessen (Milk 6 cents, Bacon 10 cents) posing in the sun in front of his shop. Every image takes us back to a specific time with very specific people. And in every image Siskind's art is very evident.

This book should not only be put back into print, it should be required in our schools. This is American history beautifully and movingly rendered. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.