|
 |
APRIL 2008
===============================
THIS MONTH'S FEATURE: EARTH DAY
1. New and Noteworthy: McCall Smith, Mathiessen, Banks
2. Earth Day: American Earth, Cape Cod, Sea Around Us
3. Guidebooks: Love Delhi, Exploring Kyoto
4. Field Work: New Guinea, Amazon, Congo, Antarctica
5. Kids' Books: Face to Face with Animals
Dear Traveler,
This Earth Day weâve got Bill McKibbenâs expertly excerpted
anthology of American environmental writing since Thoreau
along with a group of lively new reports from the
frontlines of ecological research. We include young Kate
Jackson on herpetological adventures in Africa,
ornithologist Bruce Beehlerâs memoir of his time exploring
an earthly paradise in the mountains of Papua, Indonesia,
Paul Colinvauxâs masterful summary of a long career,
literally, in the mud and geologist Bill Greenâs lyrical
portrait of Antarcticaâs dry valleys. For budding
environmentalists, we recommend National Geographicâs Face
to Face with Animals for kids ages 4 to 8.
All the best,
Daniel Kaizer and Darrel Schoeling
http://www.longitudebooks.com
800-342-2164
1. NEW & NOTEWORTHY: GOOD READING
===============================
The Miracle at Speedy Motors (BOT31, $22.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72648/r/LN/mcms.html
Ever exuberant, extraordinarily productive Alexander McCall
Smith once again channels the life and world view of a
certain Precious Ramotswe in this latest installment in
his endlessly pleasurable No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
Our sensible, redbush tea-drinking heroine helps a woman
find her relatives, enjoys the company of her sweet-hearted
husband (proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors) and
gets mixed up in the lives of her neighbors. Not much
action for a murder mystery but McCall Smith wittily
conjures the society, folklore and daily life of bygone
Gaberone. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (BOT27, $12.95),
eighth in the series, is now in paper.
The movie of the series, with singer Jill Scott in the lead
role and Dream girl Anika Noni Rose playing Grace Makutsi,
premiered to great fanfare in Gaberone on April 8. Directed
by Anthony Minghella, who died suddenly last month in
London, the movieâs fate in the U.S. is uncertain.
Twenty Chickens for a Saddle,
An African Childhood (SAF203, $24.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72202/r/LN/mcms.html
Left to roam the bush and haphazardly schooled by her free-
spirited mother, Robyn Scot writes with warmth and candor
of her unconventional upbringing in Botswana in this
affecting memoir. She tells about her grandpa Ivor,
personal pilot of the first President of Botswana, of
her physician fatherâs work, her unfortunate pets, equally
feral siblings, neighbors and many adventures. Set in the
1990s, her memoir shows too the devastation of AIDS in
Africa. This wonderful book is a clear-eyed companion to
the charming McCall Smith (who helpfully provides a blurb).
Shadow Country (FLA72, $40.00)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/73093/r/LN/mcms.html
Peter Matthiessen reworks his famous tale of the larger-
than-life Florida pioneer, compulsive liar and murderer
Edgar J. Watson in this retelling of his classic trilogy:
Killing Mister Watson, Lost Manâs River and Bone by Bone.
Heâs tightened up the story, shortening it to just one epic
book â- a family saga redolent of the scrub and swamp of
the Everglades. Shot to death in Chokoloskee, Florida by
an outraged group of citizens, E.J. Watson ran a sugar cane
plantation in the Ten Thousand Islands of southwest Florida
during the lawless years of the early 20th century.
A Modern Library edition.
The Reserve (NYS69, $24.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72790/r/LN/mcms.html
Not all is well at Tamarack Reserve in Russell Banksâ
absorbing tale of class, politics, family and lunacy.
Set in the Adirondacks in the 1930s, this novel is loosely
based on the life of noted illustrator, womanizer and
independent-thinker Rockwell Kent. The Spanish Civil War
and Hindenberg also intrude on the cozy familiarity of the
startlingly beautiful summer retreat.
2. NEW & NOTEWORTHY: EARTH DAY
===============================
American Earth (NAT139, $40.00)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72196/r/LN/mcms.html
Bill McKibben edits this authoritative collection of
the best and most significant writing on the environment
since Thoreau. Itâs all here in one fat volume by Library
of America -- the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir
and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac
and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alongside Annie Dillard,
John McPhee, Terry Tempest Williams, Edward Abbey and David
Quammen. With 80 pages of photographs, many in full color.
The Audubon Reader (BRD59, $27.50)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72926/r/LN/mcms.html
Audubon biographer Richard Rhodes edits this handsome
Everymanâs Library edition of key journal excerpts, letters
and published works by the great American painter and
conservation pioneer. Best known for his watercolor
portraits (a sample of 16 color plates from Birds of
America is included), Audubon wrote presciently about the
now-extinct passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet, his
journeys with Native Americans and other frontier travel.
Cape Cod (USE436, $35.00)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/73056/r/LN/mcms.html
Scot Miller's stunning color photographs accompany this
new illustrated edition of Thoreau's enduring classic
account of the seascapes, culture and nature of Cape Cod,
published in collaboration with The Walden Woods Project.
Miller also contributes the photographs for the 150th
anniversary edition of Walden (GEN183, $28.12), priced at
half a cent less than Walden spent building his cabin.
The Sea Around Us (OCE05, $49.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/750/r/LN/mcms.html
An illustrated commemorative edition of Rachel Carson's
influential, hugely popular paean to the sea and the
interconnectedness of nature, featuring 130 color
photographs. Carl Safina provides the forward.
3. NEW & NOTEWORTHY GUIDEBOOKS: LOVE DELHI, EXPLORING KYOTO
===============================
Expats Fiona Caufield and Judith Clancy celebrate their
favorite places -- Fiona from her base in Bangalore with
her Love Travel guides, and Judith with a new edition of
her much loved guide to the temples, gardens, ateliers
and workshops of Kyoto, where she has lived since 1970.
Love Delhi (IDA403, $40.00)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72999/r/LN/mcms.html
Packaged in an audacious and very fashionable satchel
of locally woven fuschia silk, this affectionate guide
captures the soul of Delhi, pointing with authority to
neighborhoods, shops, markets, restaurants and attractions.
With chapters on escapes to Jaipur, Varanasi, Agra,
Ranthambhore, Amritsar and Rishikesh. Produced by the
dynamic Bangalore-based Fiona Caufield and friends, this is
the third Love Travel guide, which also includes Bangalore
(IDA359, $40.00) and Mumbai (IDA389, $40.00). Here is an
excerpt from Love Delhi, describing Barber Baju Lal:
âLocated on a shady corner beside Chelmsford Club, opposite
the Press Club of India, BBL has been a barber for the past
45 years and followed his father into the profession. He
looks after famous politicians, journalists and taxi
drivers. The infrastructure is basic: a wooden chair, a
mirror against a tree and a small table for his tools. A
haircut and a shave will only be about Rs20; and if unsure
about what style you want, take a look at the Bollywood
style board! A Dehli institution.â
Exploring Kyoto (JPN26, $16.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/2553/r/LN/mcms.html
Judith Clancyâs indispensable compact guide to exploring
the neighborhoods, gardens and sanctuaries of Kyoto on foot
is back in a new, revised edition. It includes 30 walking
tours of both famous and little-known treasures, detailed
maps and a section of color photographs. Itâs a good
companion to Old Kyoto (JPN24, $22.00), Diane Durstonâs
equally personable compact guide to carefully chosen shops,
restaurants, markets and inns, many tiny and hidden away in
out-of-the-way streets or neighborhoods.
4. FIELDWORK: AMAZON, ANTARCTIC, CONGO, NEW GUINEA
===============================
These four engaging new memoirs are all in the spirit of
George Schaller -- a hero who has published a string of
popular accounts over a long career, including The Last
Panda, The Serengeti Lion and The Year of the Gorilla.
Lost Worlds,
Adventures in the Tropical Rainforest (NAT145, $28.00)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/73052/r/LN/mcms.html
Ever heard of a Golden-mantled Tree-Kangaroo? Bruce Beehler
writes with easy grace of his many expeditions to little-
visited regions of tropical India, Panama, Madagascar and
the Ivory Coast in this lively account. He concludes with
a chapter on a spectacularly successful 2005 expedition to
the isolated Foja Mountains of western New Guinea -- âas
close to the Garden of Eden as you are going to find on
Earth.â Itâs a region âwith no villages, no litter, no
logged-over or garden areas, no roads, no walking tracks,
no hunting, not even any sounds of civilization except
for a once a week passenger jet flying overhead.â
Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo (CAF40, $27.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/73043/r/LN/mcms.html
Itâs not just anyone who can enjoy trudging through
forested swampland in search of reptiles and amphibians
(naturally, many are venomous). Kate Jackson is the sort of
young professor youâd like to have had in college. You can,
for example, watch a clip of a king snake regurgitating a
corn snake on her web site. She writes with positive glee
of the many frustrations, absurd challenges and thrill of
her work in the Congo in this action-packed memoir.
Amazon Expeditions,
My Quest for the Ice-Age Equator (AMZ113, $32.50)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/73097/r/LN/mcms.html
Distinguished ecologist Paul Colinvaux (Why Big Fierce
Animals are Rare) looks at one of the knotty questions
of modern ecology -- the mind-boggling biodiversity of
the tropics â- in this absorbing memoir. Itâs not just a
detailed recap of his many expeditions to the Galapagos,
highland Ecuador and the Amazon over a long career, itâs
also a terrific example of how science actually works.
Colinvaux has spent decades literally in the mud (he takes
cores of ice-age lakes to reconstruct past environments)
and to what end? He may not be St. George but he slays
long-held notions of ecology unsupported by evidence.
Water, Ice and Stone,
Science and Memory on the Antarctic Lakes (ANT42, $15.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/2640/r/LN/mcms.html
A new edition of geologist Bill Greenâs lyrical memoir of
life and work in the 1,000-square-mile McMurdo Dry Valleys.
Winner of the John Burroughs Medal in Nature Writing.
5. KIDS' BOOKS: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICâS FACE TO FACE
===============================
Face to Face With Animals
http://www.longitudebooks.com/bin/find?d=50164&r=LN
Every young scientist begins someplace. These stunningly
illustrated books by National Geographic introduce
youngsters to animals and the excitement of work in
the field. Whales and Wolves will join the series in May.
Face to Face With Frogs (NAT140, $16.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72680/r/LN/mcms.html
Itâs spring and the peepers are chirping. Youâre two inches
away from a poison dart frog. Youâre lying on the
rainforest floor as she hops toward you, utterly fearless.
This deadly terribilis frog has nothing to fear; your fear
is that any accidental contact with your skin could mean
death! Let Mark W. Moffett, winner of the 2006 Lowell
Thomas Medal for Exploration, show you around the diverse
world of frogs. Get the expert view on our amphibian
friends, from metamorphosis to diet, from habitat to
distinctive features; and learn why we urgently need to
foster a healthier planet for these sensitive creatures.
Face to Face With Lions (BST115, $16.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/72681/r/LN/mcms.html
You look straight ahead. You try to breathe normally. You
can smell the scent of the huge cat that is staring back.
You are a cameraman. He is the King of Beasts. Your only
thought is "I hope he has already eaten today." Let
National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and
Beverly Joubert bring you closer to the power and majesty
of the regal African lion. With fewer than 25,000 wild
lions now left on Earth, the award-winning filmmakers and
naturalists make a passionate plea to readers to take an
active role in securing a future for these creatures.
Face to Face With Polar Bears (ARC198, $16.95)
http://www.longitudebooks.com/find/p/70734/r/LN/mcms.html
Photographer Norbert Rosing (World of the Polar Bear) takes
you to his favorite haunts in Churchill, home of the
greatest concentration of polar bears on Earth, in this
illustrated adventure for ages 4-8.
home map | book bag | advanced search | contact us
|
