Field Books

Pete Dunne and his wife Linda are lucky enough to take a whole year off to go birding. And we are lucky enough to come along with them in this part travel book, part bird life list. They start in his boyhood home of Whippany, New Jersey, and criss-cross North America in search of birds. They travel from the tip of the USA at the Everglades to the top of the continent at the Artic Refuge in Alaska. Not only do they write about the birds they see and hear but they also take a look at the many differnent types of people who bird. And it is all done in a comic style but with serious overtones concerning the environment, pollution, and urban sprawl. It makes you want to dust off your binos, find your bird book, and head out into the fields and forests. There is nothing more stirring then seeing a new bird for the first time. In reading this book, all the birds seem to be your first one.

A great read for the crazy birder crowd. Take it with you when you hit the important birding places, read it to learn more about the high-end of the birding subculture, and read it when you need a laugh. The short stories on Attu and the World Series of Birding are worth the price alone.

Dunne is a good writer rather than a great one. But this book is very nearly great, because of the passion and the sensitivity that he brings to the subject. What's most impressive to me is how Dunne avoids reveling in the (often) competitive nature of birding. In one memorable chapter, he writes at length about a competition between teams of birders to spot (or hear) the most species in one 24-hour period. We're caught up in the competition, and we think we're about to find out who won this good-spirited contest when . . . the chapter simply ends. And we never do find out who "won."

Dunne's point, I think, is that everybody won, and while the real winners certainly did enjoy finding a few more birds than the runners-up, ideally birding is about something bigger than winning and losing and the number on your life list.

THE FEATHER QUEST also functions as a sort of travelogue for birders, and I'm sure I'll be referring to it for years when deciding where to take my annual trip.

This is a supurb overview of birding in North America.Pete and his wife Linda spent a year on the road and came up with this excellent book that covers every aspect of birding and does it with a passion that he makes you feel you are right there beside him.Birding means something different to each person who engages in this pursuit;but Pete makes a pretty good observation when he states "the coin of tribute in birding's realm is not skill,it is shared intrest.With it an individual buys passage into the ranks of North American birders.Skill is just something birders acquire over time.But the intrest, and the pleasure people derive from watching birds,ah,those things are constants;those things are a priority.Those are the qualities that distinguish birders from society,s rank and file."
I ran across and recognized Pete one day in Portal, Arizona and struck up a conversation with him.I felt he had as much intrest in me as I had in meeting him.He hit the nail on the head;generally it's the interest one shows,not the knowledge onehas that counts.
I am sure that anyone with any interest in birding will find this book by one of the top,in every way,birders in North America an excellent book;that I guarantee ! ! !

A superbly written, thoroughly enjoyable account of birding in the United States. Birders will recognize many of the places which they have visited, and will learn of new spots to see in their own "feather quests". A must read!

I have had this book since my college days---mid fifties---and refer to it regularly. Last night our daughter told her 3 year old son to call me about a ginko berry he had found and I should look it up in Palmer's. So, it is now on it's third generation. Pretty good reputation. It is very comprehensive.
However I have the '49 edition. I hope the one I am ordering is as good.
Alice Jones, Lawrenceville, NJ

I have used the 1949 edition since high school. I especially treasure this book for its opinions which are revealed in the last paragraph of each entry. The book has a decidedly no-nonsense approach to the use of natural resources, while still very much concerned with conservation and human ecology. It's editorial emphasis is ahead of its time.

This book was given to me by my uncle more than 20 years ago and I still refer to it constantly. Although the delineation of kingdoms has been revised since the last printing of the book, it is still an excellent resource for the naturalist. I use it in conjunction with more current field guides to learn more about my interest. This book goes beyond the standard field guides by providing not only a physical description for each entry, but also adds a description of the history and uses of the entries where possible. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in our natural world.

This is a constantly used resource. I used a copy of the 1949 edition as a text for an undergraduate ecology course and haven't parted with it since. No doubt this book would be dust by now if the 1975 edition hadn't come along. If I had but one field guide, this would be it. The range and presentation of the material is useful to the professional and accessible to the novice. I'm amazed it's out of print. Ecologists everywhere should be outraged.

I got this book for a high school text book back in 1979. After I came home, my mother borrowed it, & won't give it back. She claims she has never looked anything up that wasn't in it.

It's such a great reference, that I had to get another one for myself.

Highly recomended!

This is just a great field manual. It's packed with useful information and the illustrations are plentiful and really add to the reader's understanding since they are usually fully explained in great detail. Using photos and geological examples mostly from the Pacific Northwest, the photos dramatically illustrate many of the most important concepts. The text is also very well written, and the whole manual is detailed and thorough. Overall an extremely well done, practical, and detailed treatment of the subject. And not the least of its virtues is that it's printed on high quality, glossy paper. And finally, at only 35 bucks the price is quite reasonable for what you're getting.

Field Geology Illustrated is an excellent, concise introductory guide to recognizing geological features in the field. Its explanations and descriptions of structural geology are especially informative. The photographs and figures are outstanding and clearly display fascinating geological phenomena. Perfect for novice and advanced students.

I wanted a book that would show me actual field situations of common geologic phenomenon. Being a novice, I needed something that I could easily carry and that would not undermine detail. Maley's excellent book fills the bill very well. The numerous illustrations and photographs in this book are extremely useful if you want to "see" and understand geology. Many of the pictures have inset scale standards, such as quarters and measuring rulers, that give one a good comparasion of the rocks and sediments involved. I also appreciate the black and white pictures. Often geology texts go in for snazzy color pictures that often blurr important detail. If you want a good field guide that you can actually use this book is for you.

How I wish I had found this book earlier! The best geology book I've ever bought. It gives illustrations of just about everything along with some descriptions of what you are looking at. It's almost like an illustrated geology dictionary/glossary, and gives many pictures both as drawings and photos to help the reader understand what they are seeing. It is a great asset for all geology classes. If you are someone studying geology this is a must have book!!

I have both editions and this edition is a remarkable improvement. However, the author who has vast experience in marine geology, decided to take up precious space in an early chapter on this topic since, according to him, we live on a planet covered by water. I think instead 15-20 pages introducing geologic maps and elementary structure(especially after his introductory chapter on the history of US geological surveying) would serve the reader far better--who probably will have little opportunity to particpate in 'field' marine geology.
Maley lists standard field geology books in the reference section (Compton, etc), but field geology for the beginner/student involves understanding field maps, not just photos, as good as these pics are. A few pages covering geologic maps makes sense for a field geology book with over 700 pages.

T. Lindsay Baker has written the definitive guide to windmills. This book is thoroughly researched and is more than just your typical coffee table coverage passing as a field manual. With extensive footnotes, manufacturers appendix, history and individual model coverage, Baker provides the scholarly coverage windmills deserve in the development of the US, in particular the American West. The settlement of this country, both real and myth, would be significantly different without the development of the windmill as it was.
James Grooms

Among windmillers, this book is known as "the bible". For more information than most people need, this is the one to own.

The book is very well done with lots of pictures and information. A true tribute to our unsung Giants of the Past. Most stand in fields or yards, unnoticed, broken down and/or grown over...showing both signs of age and of neglect. Yet, with a little TLC they could once again be productive... capable of producing a mesmerizing effect on the soul or energy if needed. They actually serve a multitude of purposes if only people would take the time to care for them, they would give plenty back in return. They are our only remaining Giants of the Past and they deserve our respect and acknowledgement. This book does just that and, hopefully, it will make its readers take notice of these great Giants and their needs and many uses. They were meant to serve us and would once again if only we'd let them.

I purchased this book for my Dad and he loves it.

A Field Guide to American Windmills is the most thorough book available on the subject of American windmills. Baker has painstakingly researched the histories of dozens of American windmill manufacturers, photographed surviving examples of each, and finally provided a silhouette drawing of each model to aid the 'windmill spotter' in identifying them. This book is a must for anyone interested in American history, rural heritage, or who just likes windmills.

My grandma originally owned a copy of this book and regularly noted sightings of interesting/rare species. I bought my own copy several years ago and it has proved quite useful. The most interesting example was a Java Sparrow sighted in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I couldn't find out what it was from searching around online, but looking in the back of this field guide, under foreign/introduced species, there it was.

I received this book as a gift and have used it constantly. I keep it on my window sill during the feeding season to identify the visiters to my feeder. The book's size and physical construction are excellent. As someone who is a novice it seems to be very comprehensive on the subject matter.

Even when I lived in the city, I liked to feed and watch the birds (mainly sparrows and pigeons). Now that we live up in the woods, we're in bird paradise. Using this Peterson Field Guide for "Eastern Birds" plus a good pair of binoculars for visual identifications, and the "Birding by Ear Eastern/Central" CDs (Richard K. Walton and Robert W. Lawson) I've identified 42 species of birds in just over a month, as a casual observer for the Michigan Breeding Bird Atlas II project.

I have other bird books, but it is Peterson's Field Guide that I use most frequently. Roger Tory Peterson's 'system' "is based on patternistic drawings with arrows that pinpoint the key field marks." You don't have to have the bird in hand in order to make an identification. In addition to 136 full-color plates of Eastern birds (male, female, and immature, or summer and winter plumage if they differ markedly), there are also 390 three-color maps (first introduced in the 1980 edition).

The maps are absolutely essential for an amateur like me. If I've narrowed down a blurry little gray bird to X and Y, and Y never makes it north of the Mason-Dixon Line, I can be pretty certain that the bird is X. Here's an actual example on the utility of the maps: I was trying to distinguish a trilling song that could either belong to the Swamp Sparrow, the Pine Warbler, or the Northern Junco. We do see Juncos at our feeders in the winter, but this is July and according to Peterson's map, the Juncos spend the summer north of here, mostly in Canada. So I've narrowed the trill down to the Swamp Sparrow or the Pine Warbler (actually I'm positive we've got both as I've made tentative visual identifications. It makes sense since we live in the Pine Barrens which is dotted with numerous swamps).

This book begins with a generalized introduction to identifying birds by shape, distinctive features and behavior. Physically, it is tightly bound and just the right size to slip into a backpack. The pages are glossy and 'relatively' waterproof if you wipe them quickly dry. There is even a 'life list' up front where you can check off the birds you have seen.

Don't go birding without it.

The Peterson field Guide to Eastern American Birds turned out to be the best birding book I've ever read. The book was well thought out and had the format that we needed in our suburban environment. The illustrations were concise and made identifying the birds extremely easy. We have a large population of Red-Winged Blackbirds and Mourning Doves, and its great to actually know what in the world we were looking at. It was great!

This is the best of the field guides for the amature birder in my opinion. I purchased a guide that had actual photos of birds in their habitats, thinking it would be the best, but it definately was not as good or as easy to use as the Peterson field guide. If you are looking for a good all around field guide to keep near your binoculars, this one is my pick.

Very nice guide and a good deal compare with others fish publications. This book also brings interesting aspects on fish ecology. I didn't like the last part about cooking the fish, but I guess many people may find that cool.

It still gets five stars for content, good writing, amazingly extensive data, and imaginative inclusions, of which the one on keeping wild fish in home ponds and aquaria is the most surprising and the one on preparing and cooking the creatures is the most splendid.
Just to be done with it, the "almost" refers to some features of layout and form, which are irritating. They are not so bad as to make me want to throw it at a passing raccoon, but they do exercise some of my less formal vocabulary.
As a wildlife rehabilitator, I depend on field guides a lot, and good ones are not as common as we all wish. This one is a dandy, and I am truly glad for it and recommend it to anyone interested in western states fishes, not just those of California.
As a serious cook, I am downright thrilled with the culinary section, which is flatly the best fish cookbook I have ever seen since the immortal Rombauer's JOY OF COOKING, the only other book I know which deals with ALL the details of preparation.

Once again, Dr. McGinnis has done it! We own the first edition and now the newly revised edition. This is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to know more about the physiology of the fish species in California. The pictures and illustrations are a handy guide for identification. There is also a wonderful section on fish preparation with some great recipes. If you want to expand your Freshwater Fish knowledge, BUY THIS BOOK!

This superb, comprehensive field guide covers not just the extant freshwater fish of California, but details how to catch them, how to cook them, and even how to keep them in the aquarium or pond at home. Superb photographs, and detailed descriptions of each species.
It is truly a travesty though that many of the alien fish in the state that have caused such devastation to native species have been deliberately introduced by the governmental agency responsible for the stewardship of California's freshwater ecosystems. Reading of the California Department of Fish & Game's persistent and ongoing mismanagement is alarming, and a clear indication that the citizens of the state deserve that the bunglers in charge of that office be bought to task and replaced by competent people.

This book is an extensive compilation of every thinkable freshwater fish in the Golden State. Anyone who might be curious to know about California's numerous freshwater dwellers. Also, McGinnis' son, Ross, is a succesful music instructor at Los Gatos High School, California.

With a prodigious breadth and fearless depth, she takes the segue to a high art. Anything can be the occasion for connection. Any sentence can break your mind or heart wide open. Her most personal, and my personal favorite. Reading this book makes me feel alive.

Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide To Getting Lost discusses experience and getting lost in the everyday, examining how people move from cities to wilderness, how they search for sense of self in an uncertain life, and how her own explorations in the world have changed her life. At once an autobiography and introspective examination, A Field Guide To Getting Lost surveys connections, ancestry, history, and modern culture in a personal odyssey of exploration.

Solnit's book is as the title suggests--a discursive reflectoin on the many nuances of the idea of 'getting lost.' You find out that 'lost' is from the Norse meaning 'the dispersal of armies,' and that early Renaissance painters use blue to designate distance, that children are better (i.e., less likely to die) at getting lost because they don't rationalize the way adults do--all in just a few pages where the insight garnered is both spun out by the author, but left to the reader to stop and pursue in his/her own reflections. Of the twenty or so books of all genres which I've read in the last few weeks--and of those I will read in the next several I suspect--this book incarnates why I read: erudite, entertaining, entrancing. Solnit's book reaches out toward Wordsworth, Dillard, Thoreau--and the Clash, Plato, Robert Hass. The voice and perspective, though, are her own. The essays here can not be read in great, long gulps; switching metaphors, there is hearty sustenance here--you take in only so much, and you are sated with good things which you must digest before moving on. Side note: whoever edited the book did a disservice--occasional glaring errors, such as 'form' being spelled out 'from' and 'good' repeated a second time in a context where the repetition makes no sense (and when you know the author would have easily used another expression to capture the nuance intended over against using something as clunky as redundancy of such a limited word).

A mesmerizing book that is three separate tales told at the same time. At times humorous and sometimes it made me want to cry, this story was hard to put down. I would highly recommend it.

The first question is, what is a field guide to getting lost? Field guides help us with finding, not losing or getting lost. We use them to classify the unfamiliar and figure out what surrounds us. They reassure us that the bewildering array of natural phenomena has an underlying order. Solnit's title suggests we might also want our schemas to break down. Can we catalogue the various ways of getting lost as we might catalogue songbirds? The paradox feels whimsical, mocking, alluring. Like the title, the tone of the book will hover between the urge to know and the urge not to know, between rationality and mystery.

In the middle of the first chapter, Solnit gives us a manifesto: "Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction." "Lost," for her, means we lack a narrative for what we are experiencing. Getting lost is a kind of Zen rebirth because "to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty." Getting lost also has connotations of spiritual longing. Solnit titles every other chapter "The Blue of Distance." Blue "represents the spirit, the sky, and water, the immaterial and the remote, so that however tactile ansd close-up it is, it is always about distance and disembodiment." Voila the tone of the book--grand, abstract, sensual, yearning and inexorably aloof.

With a topic like the beauty of longing and loss, it is surprising how rarely Solnit lapses into cliché. Her prose is as smooth and bare as polished stone. It creates the feeling of waking from a dream and encountering the world, dazed and receptive. If Thoreau is the most cerebral of the philosopher-poets and Whitman the most sensual, Rebecca Solnit belongs at the midpoint. She does not allow herself academic verbal tics, or excess verbiage, but neither does she shy away from the syntactical complexity of acadmic writing. She integrates lyric sensuality and philosophizing as if these modes belong together, as if western civilization had never tried to separate mind and body. I admire her poise and authority a little as I admire Susan Sontag's. Solnit's is a supremely self-possessed voice, which may be the same thing as a voice that has abandoned the antic whining of the self. She draws deeply on experience, yet she resists the confessional mode.

You might say that Solnit offers an optimistic way to confront the globalized, alienated world of the twenty-first century, a sort of "If God gives you lemons, make lemonade," or "If God gets you lost, revel in it." You could argue that she offers a sophisticated alternative to the self-help genre, though I imagine Solnit would look down on self-help. She likes slipperiness and paradox too much. Still, she is interested in finding a way forward for the soul, and I, for one, am glad because my little soul is often bewildered.

I think Solnit dances between lostness and foundness. She notes that "nomads have fixed circuits and stable relationships to places," and her own wandering through the west is ritualized, repetitive. She doesn't need to go to Antarctica; she gets lost in America. Her home territory is simply vast and ambitious, her spirals broad. Still, in order to lose herself time after time, she has to find herself in between.

I usually find books like this hokey - at least they don't appeal to me AT ALL. I picked this up for some reason and right away I was attracted to the format. The book has 4 sections: Lists, Mind-Mapping, Journaling and Misc. I'm a list maker so that section is easy - but what really stands out is the Mind-Mapping section. There are so many great ideas for Mind Maps there with suggestions on the branches to include. I could see taking a whole journal and using it for just the section on Mind Maps - maybe as a "work in progress" - going back to the different maps and adding to them.

There are about 2 suggestions per page (for list, map or journal) - so you really can pick something out of any part of the book that appeals to you. The book isn't really meant to be read straight through. I find something interesting every time I open it up!

Purchased for my wife - she was happy with the purchase - I am rating the purchase experience not the content of book

The great Barbara Kipfer strikes again! This is a fun book that has helped me find more happiness in life. It's fun to read, and easy to use, and will help a lot of people "find their bliss." It works for me.

I really am enjoying this book -- it's fun and easy to read.

If you are into list-making, which many people swear by -- then this book is for you.

A feel good recommendation.

I caught a dose of happiness reading Barbara Ann Kipfer's idea-filled book,Field Guide to Happiness. It's a smiley face of a book. You just feel good after reading her instructions on how to achieve a state of pure contentment. The book has directions, explanations, suggestions, and creative ideas about writing lists of things that make you happy. A whole section is devoted to "mind-mapping," in which thoughts and feelings are used to work out solutions to problems, with happiness as the goal. Then there is a very useful section titled "Keeping a Journal," as a guide to happiness.But there's much more in its beautifully illustrated pages (by Sandy Hoffman)that will fire your imagination --it has mine-- and give you a real sense on what it means to be happy. I give it 5 stars!

This is an awesome little book on herbs and spices.Not only does it describe the history and status of the herb,it also has a recipe for each spice and herb presented.It also lists the scientific nomenclature for each as well as the various ethnocentric names,from around the world.Caveat emptor is cautioned and serving suggestions advised.There is even a small addendum of 'Spice mixtures' added,at the closing of the book.In medii rebus,there is a helpful visual photo presentation of the herbs and spices discussed.This spice book will awaken your dishes and best promotes rejuvenescene,much better than the modern artificial additives.

the book was very easy to read, had a lot of information in it.

Part of a series which also includes guides to Produce, Meat, Cocktails and Stains, this useful and attractive little book contains a wealth of information on herbs from Angelica to Wild Lime Leaf and spices from Ajwain to Wasabi.

Set up like a field guide - with color plates in the center, along with the guide to the icons - each entry includes Other Names, General Description, Season, Purchase and Avoid, Storage, and Recipe.

Anyone who glances at this will find a place for it on the kitchen shelf. The recipes alone are likely to win you over, from Creole Mustard Sauce (mustard seed), Carrot Currant Salad (rosemary) and Veal with Myrtle. For those who want to try Shrimp with Calamint, say, or Indian Naan with Negella Seeds, online sources are listed at the back of the book.

The entries themselves are packed with information from origins and history to special preparations and seasonal considerations. A truly terrific little book.

--Portsmouth Herald

This is a very nice book and especially so for visual people.

My favorite feature of this guide is the flavor affinities list for each item. The affinities list helps with menu planning and gives you more options for the spice or herb's use. The fact that this book has actual recipes rather than serving suggestions is a bonus. I have a couple of other herb/spice guides, but am most taken with this one.

I like this Tracking theme and I wonder why there are many species living in North Mexico and South USA that are not included, like the Jaguar that still lives in Sonora and occasionally in Arizona. I will recomend other track books as:
Mammal Tracks & Sign: A Guide to North American Species

Many times in the field you only see a small portion of a track, or an indistinct line of marks, like in snow a line of tracks may be a line of little holes in the snow. . is there a way to still tell what the animal is and what it was doing. . YES. The answers are in this book in Dr. Halfpenny's methodical way of measuring gaits, stride, animal size and other clues. With this guide, as well as Mark Elbroch's heavier one on Mammal Tracks & Sign you can learn to track animals. By that I mean you can tell what animals were there, what they were doing and when, even when you can't see picture book examples in the mud or dust. This book (my third copy) is in my pack, and Mark's is in my car (with a second copy at home).

Animal tracks are more than just impressions in the snow, mud, or dirt. They are a record of what an animal was doing, where it was going, and what it was thinking... IF you know how to read them.

Jim Halfpenny has spent most of his life following, recording, and interpreting the elusive tracks of animals. This book focuses on mammals.

Now there are a number of books on bird and mammal tracks. A Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America is much more than a collection of diagrams. This book:

* discusses the anatomy and behavior behind tracks

* develops a rationale on how to look at and measure a track

* revels the differences between a gait, a step, a jump, and a straddle

* discusses tracking techniques (Halfpenny gives seminars on this topic, and it is included as Chapter 4 in this book)

* reviews track characteristics of canids, felids, lagomorphs, ungulates, and rodents, along with bears, weasels, raccoons, opossums, and shrews.

* discusses "scatology"

* presents a number of interesting cases that he then works through to show the reader how to approach a mystery track and identify the animal, and its behavior, correctly.

This is not a very expensive book. It could have been even less expensive with the elimination of the 12 full-page color illustrations of selected mammals in the center of the book. They were nice, but distracting, and most of the drawings don't even have pictures of tracks, the point of the book!

This book would have been improved with use of a digital camera in capturing images of tracks. However, Halfpenny has been collecting them his whole life, certainly prior to the common use of this technique! This is a "must have" book for the serious tracker.... a bargain through and through.

I've read a number of tracking books and this one is the best. Easy to follow. Sensible. Lots on gait patterns and scats. James tells you what he knows and is careful not to pretend to know more than he does.

More in depth tracks, skills, info, much better than any of Tom Browns books, also does not contain T.B.'s spirituality. The actual art this man retains is amazing!!! GREAT BOOK!!! There is a reason this book is almost always sold out!