Books for the thinking person on your list
REVIEWS BY MARTIN BRADY
Shopping for the nonfiction lover on your list should be a snap this holiday season if the following sampling of recent releases is any indication of what pulishers have up their sleeves.
Give them the world
Certainly the biggest, if not the best, volume is The Travel Book: A Journey Through
Every Country in the World. This weighty tome provides photographic and textual
coverage of every nation and commonwealth on the planet, from Afghanistan to
Zimbabwe. Each destination is covered in a colorful two-page spread featuring photos,
both small and very large, which capture glimpses of local terrain and cityscapes, but
which more keenly focus on indigenous people, flora and fauna, and cultural customs.
The accompanying text efficiently whets the appetite of the prospective world traveler
with once-over-lightly discussion of peak travel periods and things to do, incisive tidbits
about the character of the country, an instructive phrase or two in the native language,
and a small map delineating key areas and urban centers. From flamingos basking in the
waters of Tanzania's Lake Magadi, to an aging, dreadlocked Jamaican gentleman, to a
13th-century hillside church overlooking Macedonia's Lake Ohrid, the visuals here are
nothing short of sensational. Perhaps no less astonishing is the book's price tag, since this
kind of pictorially opulent coffee-table item often costs twice as much.
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Wartime remembrance
Armchair historians will revel in World War II, a strikingly informative and
visually gratifying oversized omnibus supervised by three major British journalists: H.P.
Willmott, Charles Messenger and Robin Cross. The authors provide the important
background on events leading up to the war, especially the aftermath of World War I and
the territorial disputes and economic situation in Europe, which became a breeding
ground for the rise of Hitler's Nazism. They then launch into cogent, authoritative
accounts of events both political and military, from the Battle of Britain to Pearl Harbor
to D-Day and beyond to the critical postwar period. Coverage is essentially
chronological, yet the straightforward text is enhanced throughout with fascinating
sidebars on national leaders and key generals (Churchill, Eisenhower, Stalin, etc.),
enlisted men, tanks and airplanes, munitions and related issues including the Holocaust,
civilian internments, women on the homefront, and even the war as depicted in cinema.
Handy maps and timelines offer quick overviews of the bigger picture as well. For all its
good writing, however, this volume's value rests equally with its hundreds of (mostly)
black-and-white photos, many very rare, which have been gathered from museums,
libraries and newspaper and magazine archives the world over.
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Back to the Garden
Even if we allow New Yorkers a little slack for their "endearing nearsightedness," we'd
probably have to admit some truth to their contention that Madison Square Garden is "the
world's most famous arena." George Kalinsky has been the Garden's official
photographer since 1966, and his nearly 40 years of work are the basis for Garden of
Dreams: Madison Square Garden 125 Years, which uses stirring pictures to tell a
story of international sports, politics, entertainment and celebrity. The volume benefits
from a terrific introduction by journalist Pete Hamill, who takes the Garden through its
various structural and site changes since the 19th century, complete with illustrative
anecdotes that capture the distinctively New York mindset. Other brief essays are
contributed by personalities for whom the Garden brings fond memories, including Bill
Cosby, John McEnroe, Bill Bradley, Robert Klein and Spike Lee. Kalinsky's photosó
supplemented by some black-and-white archival shotsóare by turns colorful and fraught
with history. Subjects include New York Knicks basketball greats, world-class animal
tamer Gunther Gebel-Williams, Muhammad Ali, Nadia Comaneci, Pope John Paul II,
Peggy Fleming and Clinton/Gore together at the 1992 Democratic Convention.
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Stars in our eyes
In Astronomy: A Visual Guide, British science writer Mark A. Garlick offers us
the reassuring news that the sun has enough fuel "to last another 5,000 to 8,500 million
years." Of course, this is but one little info bite in his fact- and theory-packed, visually
stimulating excursion through the night skies. Garlick first takes readers through
humankind's historical fascination with space, with quick-take lists and chronological
rundowns concerning archaeoastronomy, early and later astronomical tools, the scientific
discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and others, manned spacecraft, space disasters and the
various unmanned probes that have been charting deep space for the past 30 years. The
heart of the book is a star-gazer's wonderland, offering a trove of hard data and
interesting speculation on the Solar System, stars and galaxies, and the further reaches of
the as-yet-unknown universe. Despite some spotted typographical errors, the text is
otherwise eminently readable. But best of all are the stunning photos, taken from the
world's important observatories and from space-based cameras. Attractive and
imaginative artist's renderings, including star maps, fill out this intriguing astronomical
tour.
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It's all Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was not only a giant among architects, he was also a towering
personality. His life (1867-1959) spanned critical junctures in two centuries, through
which he changed the face of building design-both residential and commercial-and
became a controversial firebrand for the pursuit of artistic freedom as best expressed
through what he characterized as "organic architecture." Frank Lloyd Wright: The
Interactive Portfolio is a simply fascinating collection of Wrightiana, capturing the
essential man and artist in a unique, multimedia format. The text, written by Wright
archivist Margo Stipe, touches sensitively on Wright's professional accomplishments as
well as on his sometimes tempestuous personal life, but the rarer value here is the
collection of photos, previously unpublished architectural sketches, and facsimiles of
various documents and letters written both by and to the master. The elegantly handsome
package is slipcased, and it also features a fabulous CD presenting excerpts from Wright
lectures and interviews through the years, including an entertainingly contentious 1957
téte-ô-téte with television reporter Mike Wallace. A one-of-a-kind gift item.
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