Amazon   |   READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE
We feature a handpicked selection of travel guides, maps, literature, books on art, nature and culture, all designed to help you get more out of your travels to Amazon . Order an essential package, and we'll ship any additional items for free.

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Insight Guide Amazon Wildlife  •  Huw Hennessy  •  Hans-Ulrich Bernard
GUIDEBOOK •  2003 •  PAPER  • 368 PAGES
An illustrated guide to the region, its wildlife and conservation by an international team of biologists and photographers. It covers biogeography, habitats, animal groups and conservation problems in a series of short essays. Several chapters are devoted to the people of the region and to a country-by-country survey of the river's features. It also includes some practical travel information and a short checklist of mammals and birds. (AMZ03, $22.95)
  Insight Guide Amazon Wildlife
The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon  •  Michael Goulding  •  Ronaldo Barthem  •  Efrem Ferreira
NATURAL HISTORY •  2003 •  HARD COVER  • 254 PAGES
An illustrated atlas of the 4000-mile-long river, including its major tributaries, with 150 full color maps and 300 photographs. Michael Goulding (Floods of Fortune) and Brazilian biologists Ronaldo Barthem and Efrem Ferreira provide the accompanying text. Organized geographically, with chapters on major tributaries and drainage basins in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. (AMZ82, $39.95)
  The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon
In Trouble Again  •  Redmond O'Hanlon
EXPLORATION •  1990 •  PAPER  • 272 PAGES • FAVORITE
O'Hanlon starts this impossibly witty account of a four-month journey into the Venezuelan Amazon with a litany of the insects, protozoa, snakes and predators that can do you harm. A comic masterpiece, the book is also noteworthy for its excellent descriptions of the wildlife, environment and peoples of the Amazon. Imagine a PBS documentary hosted by the Monty Python troupe. (AMZ04, $13.95)
  In Trouble Again
Tropical Nature  •  Adrian Forsyth  •  Ken Miyata
NATURAL HISTORY •  1984 •  PAPER  • 248 PAGES • FAVORITE
A lively, lucid portrait of the tropics as seen by two uncommonly observant and thoughtful field biologists. Its 17 marvelous essays introduce the habitats, ecology, plants and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. With a lengthy appendix of practical advice for the tropical traveler. (GPS13, $14.00)
  Tropical Nature
Amazon Basin Map  •   ITMB
MAP
A colorful physical map scaled at 1:4,000,000, showing the entire Amazon Basin from the Andes to the Atlantic. (AMZ05, $11.95)
  Amazon Basin Map
 

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Jungle Travel and Survival  •  John Walden, M.D.   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Medical doctor and frequent Amazon-traveler Walden provides useful advice on avoiding malaria, parasites, poisonous and dangerous animals, dehydration and much more in this compact guide. (AMZ73, $18.95)
 
 
Walking the Jungle, An Adventurer's Guide to the Amazon  •  John Coningham   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Coningham, an experienced outdoorsman who lives in the Brazilian Amazon, offer down-to-earth advice in this companionable guide. (AMZ83, $16.95)
 
 
River of Doubt, Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey  •  Candice Millard   • HISTORY  •  Millard captures the suspense and the setting in vivid detail in this chronicle of Roosevelt's calamitous, ill-prepared Amazon expedition. (AMZ96, $14.95)
 
 
The Burning Season:The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest  •  Andrew Revkin   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  A riveting non-fiction murder mystery: the story of Chico Mendes, a rubber industry union organizer killed in the Brazilian Amazon River town of Xapuri in 1988. (AMZ08, $25.00)
 
 
The Enchanted Amazon Rain Forest, Stories from a Vanishing World  •  Nigel J.H. Smith   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  A wonderfully presented collection of observations from the Amazon, this is a good introduction to the people, culture and geography of the rain forest. (AMZ26, $29.95)
 
 
The Mapmaker's Wife  •  Robert Whitaker   • HISTORY  •  Colonial politics, the travails of the cartographer, and good old-fashioned murder all add intrigue to this absorbing tale of 18th-century European exploration of the Amazon -- and one woman's quest to find her husband deep in the jungle. (AMZ97, $13.00)
 
 
Tree of Rivers, The Story of the Amazon  •  John Hemming   • HISTORY  •  Hemming captures the ambition, greed and awe of naturalists, explorers and missionaries -- and the devastating impact on native peoples -- in this magisterial human history of the region. (AMZ114, $39.95)
 
 
Tristes Tropiques  •  Claude Levi-Strauss  •  John Weightman  •  Doreen Weightman   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  The classic, insightful account of the peoples of the Amazon by the inventor of structural anthropology. A demanding read, yet humorous and worthwhile. (AMZ14, $20.00)
 
 
Brazilian Adventure  •  Peter Fleming   • EXPLORATION  •  A classic and very entertaining account of a 3,000-mile quest through the Amazon in search of a missing English colonel, first published in 1933. (AMZ55, $16.95)
 
 
Cloud Forest, A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness  •  Peter Matthiessen   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • FAVORITE  •  Matthiessen recounts with wit, insight and style his odyssey to the Amazon and Andes, including Machu Picchu and Tierra del Fuego. (SAM02, $16.00)
 
 
Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon  •  William Herndon  •  Gary Kinder   • EXPLORATION  •  An original account of 19th-century exploration of the Amazon by Captain Herndon, who traveled from Lima to the Pacific coast of Brazil. (AMZ67, $14.00)
 
 
Explorers of the Amazon  •  Anthony Smith   • EXPLORATION  •  In this well told overview of the region, Anthony Smith presents a history of exploration of the Amazon, scientific and otherwise. (AMZ31, $32.50)
 
 
La Doctora, The Journal of an American Doctor Practicing Medicine of the Amazon River  •  Linnea Smith   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  An insightful collection of letters home to America from a doctor at an Amazonian jungle clinic for education and research. (AMZ43, $16.95)
 
 
Life in the Treetops, Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology  •  Margaret Lowman   • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR  •  The sprightly memoir of an ecologist who climbs, studies and sleeps in trees for a living, balancing multiple roles of scientist, wife and mom. She continues her story in a second memoir (written with her now-grown sons). (AMZ57, $13.95)
 
 
One River, Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon  •  Wade Davis   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  A spellbinding, sprawling tale of explorers, botanical secrets, and larger-than-life personalities in northwest South America. (AMZ22, $17.00)
 
 
Running the Amazon  •  Joe Kane   • EXPLORATION  •  A best-selling account of a 4000-mile expedition from the high Andes to the Atlantic by foot, raft and kayak -- an expedition only four of the ten participants finished. (AMZ13, $14.00)
 
 
Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice  •  Mark Plotkin   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • FAVORITE  •  In this marvelous book, Plotkin recounts his work documenting the use of medicinal plants among remote tribes in the Northwest Amazon of Suriname, Venezuela, Guyana and French Guiana. The book is a portrait of people and their environment, a tale of adventure and, most of all, a moving example of science in the service of preservation. A great read for anyone traveling anywhere on the Amazon. (AMZ15, $16.00)
 
 
The Sea and the Jungle  •  H.M. Tomlinson   • EXPLORATION  •  First published in 1912, this is a thoroughly unromanticized, absorbing account of a 2,000-mile journey by steamship deep into the Amazon. Understated and often hilarious. (AMZ10, $18.00)
 
 
White Waters and Black  •  Gordon McCreagh  •  George Schaller   • EXPLORATION  •  A classic account of a two-year-long scientific expedition to the Bolivian Amazon, funny, sweet and thrilling. Originally published in 1923. (AMZ70, $16.00)
 
 
Green Mansions  •  W.H. Hudson   • LITERATURE  •  Probably the best known work of fiction set in the Amazon, this novel by Hudson (first published in 1904) is a classic tale of "travels and adventures among the savages." (AMZ19, $12.95)
 
 
Little Tiny Teeth  •  Aaron J. Elkins   • MYSTERY  •  From the Edgar Award-winning author of Unnatural Selection comes this mystery to chill the bones. When a forensics professor joins an Amazon riverboat expedition, he expects a vacation. But in a jungle full of predators, he realizes the humans may be the deadliest of all. (AMZ105, $7.99)
 
 
The Lost Steps  •  Alejo Carpentier  •  Harriet Onis   • LITERATURE  •  A hallucinatory novel of a young urban musicologist's journey to a fictional city in the Amazon basin. For those with an appreciation for demanding literature, this is a celebrated masterpiece. (AMZ18, $17.50)
 
 
The Lost World  •  Arthur Conan Doyle   • LITERATURE  •  Inspired by the magnificent landscapes surrounding the Orinoco River, this classic novel follows an intrepid scientist into the jungles of the Amazon Basin in search of prehistoric creatures. (VNZ04, $10.00)
 
 
A Neotropical Companion  •  J.C. Kricher  •  Mark Plotkin   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  A tropical primer aimed at the motivated general reader. From plants and animals to birds and bugs, it's all here in this wonderfully written overview of the ecology, habitats, plants and animals of Central and South America. (GPS11, $29.95)
 
 
Amazon: Floods of Fortune  •  Michael Goulding   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  A masterful survey of the people, culture, ecology and economy of the Amazon flood plain, a threatened yet slightly overlooked (compared with upland rain forests) wetland. (AMZ06, $29.00)
 
 
Birds of Tropical America  •  Steven Hilty   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  Hilty serves up essays on how to find and better appreciate the dizzying variety of birds, their habits and habitats, diversity and distribution. (CAM39, $19.95)
 
 
In Amazonia, A Natural History  •  Hugh Raffles   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  An intriguing look at the intertwined history of people and nature in the Amazon. Academic yet still artful, Raffles focuses on a small Brazilian riverine community and the transformation of their river over the last 50 years. (AMZ85, $25.95)
 
 
Jungles  •  Frans Lanting  •  Christine Eckstrom   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  An oversize, well produced portfolio of the creatures of the world's equatorial forests by the outstanding wildlife photographer and adventurer Frans Lanting. He presents the birds, insects, reptiles, mammals and plants of the jungles in 120 extraordinary color photographs. (AMZ65, $19.99)
 
 
Requiem for Nature  •  John Terborgh   • NATURAL HISTORY  •  A passionate and thoughtful plea for conservation of the rain forest from a noted biologist. (FST07, $29.50)
 
 
A Field Guide to Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Upper Amazon  •  James L. Castner  •  Stephen L. Timme  •  James A. Duke   • FIELD GUIDE  •  A photographic identification guide focusing on the practical uses of common plants of the tropical forest. (AMZ39, $38.00)
 
 
A Field Guide to the Birds of Peru  •  James Clements  •  Noam Shany  •  Dana Gardner  •  Eustace Barnes   • FIELD GUIDE  •  A comprehensive field guide to the birds of Peru, featuring 127 color plates and illustrating almost 1,800 species, focusing on their identification, habitat, and distribution. (PRU21, $60.00)
 
 
A Guide to the Birds of Venezuela  •  Steven Hilty  •  Guy Tudor  •  J.A. Gwynne   • FIELD GUIDE  •  The classic South American bird guide, revised and expanded by Steve Hilty. A bit hefty for a field guide at just over 4 pounds, but still an essential reference to over 1,400 bird species. Travelers in the Brazilian Amazon will find it especially useful. (FG13, $59.50)
 
 
Amazon Insects - A Photo Guide  •  James L. Castner   • FIELD GUIDE  •  Spectacular, weird, and commonly encountered bugs, butterflies, katydids, leafhoppers, ants, bees, spiders and other insects of the Amazon basin. Geared for the traveler, this handy book features 200 color photographs and accompanying text. (AMZ63, $20.00)
 
 
Birds of Ecuador, A Field Guide  •  Paul Greenfield  •  Robert Ridgely   • FIELD GUIDE  •  A comprehensive, gorgeous and exhaustively researched field guide to the birds of Ecuador (and adjacent countries), featuring 96 color plates. It's also the best bird guide for travelers in the Peruvian Amazon. (EDR08, $55.00)
 
 
Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, A Field Guide  •  L.H. Emmons   • FIELD GUIDE  •  A pictorial guide to the mammals of the New World tropics, compact enough to slip into your daypack, with 29 color plates of more than 200 species. (GPS12, $32.50)
 
 


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