Getting To Know The South Pacific

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Getting To Know The South Pacific
Joy Adamson
Manufacturer: Coward McCann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JFDR88

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Getting To Know The South Pacific
Joyce
Manufacturer: Coward McCann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JBZH6W

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Getting to know the South Pacific
Charles Rhind Joy
Manufacturer: Coward-McCann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Getting to Know the South Pacific

Manufacturer: Coward-McCann, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000CRO4AI

Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd Edition

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AAE 330
Integrated Review of Two Top Books That Mesh Well
Not so useful
good info poorly written
Great book of information about one's environment

Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies, 2nd Edition
G. Z. Brown , and Mark DeKay
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0471348775

While other authors deal with the cultural significance of something like the meadowlands, Quinn takes the position of a passionate naturalist and friend of the meadowlands, describing in detail wildlife, regional ecology and geology, history of the area and the many pressures the meadows face today.

A must if you're a fan of urban ecology, New Jersey, or just well-written nonfiction.

The setting is the New Jersey Meadowlands, a wild and reedy tract located a mere six miles west of New York's Times Square. It is considered by many as nothing more than a "toxic wasteland," but is in fact home to a dazzling array of often overlooked plants and animals. While there is little doubt that many of the life forms that once thrived here are long gone, many others remain, and these are the primary focus of this book. Many, many species are discussed; far too many to list here. Suffice it to say Quinn leaves no stones unturned.

The book has three central parts, respectively called "Yesterday," "Today," and "Tomorrow." Each covers a different time period in the ecological life of the Meadowlands. There also is an "Introduction," a "Starting Point," an "Epilogue," a bibliography, an index, and an interesting sort of "hands-on" chapter called "Exploring the Meadowlands." This will be of particular interest to anyone who lives within traveling distance of the region. It gives helpful and experienced advice on enjoyed the Meadowlands firsthand through boating, fishing, hiking, and the visiting of local parks.

Quinn's text is thorough, complete, and offered in a beautifully poetic yet pragmatic prose, making the read that much more pleasant and inviting. A memorable example can be found right at the beginning of the introduction-"Six miles-and ten thousand years-to the west of Manhattan's Times Square lies one of the grandest environmental paradoxes on Earth. Here, beneath a sun often obscured by smoky industrial exhalations, a river of many bends makes its way to the sea." It is peppered throughout with the occasional personal anecdote, like the touching retelling of an experience an eight-year-old Quinn had with his beloved grandfather in the summer of 1946 called "Grandpa and the Red Herring" (page 36). The paperback version is 348 pages in length, and much to Quinn's credit, a great deal of it is made up of his thoughtful and well-researched text.

The author's artwork is perhaps the aspect of the book that most effectively haunts you. It is simple black-and-white ink sketches, but there is an emotional complexity to each that is hard to describe, yet easy to appreciate. Quinn's clever focus on the wildlife while making sure to almost always include some image from man's industrial intervention does a marvelous job of hammering the book's point home. A glaring example of this can be found on pages 124 and 125, where we see a lone kestrel perched on the peak of a weed, while in the background looms the vague but unmistakable figure of a pair of tractors and a group of hard-hatted workers. Somehow the lack of colorization adds to the feeling of both positive and negative, of humankind's destructiveness (both intentional and inadvertent), and of the wildlife's determination to go on.

John Quinn is no stranger to the region, having been born and raised in the Village of Ridgefield Park, which rests on the Meadowland's northern edge. According to the author bio, he has published ten other books on nature and science. A potential reader can be comforted and assured by the fact that Quinn's experience and sincerity are deeply invested into every word and every drawing. In this age of the slipshod, assembly-line product, here we find an honest and lovingly crafted work by a man who genuinely cares about what he's doing.

As a proud and concerned naturalist myself, I strongly urge you to pick up a copy of Fields of Sun and Grass.

This comprehensive volume documents for the first time twenty-one châteaux and pavilions commissioned by Louis XIV, France's great builder-king. These royal buildings, and over forty architectural ornaments enriching their gardens, are illustrated in breathtaking watercolors by authors Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams. Depicted are several of the most influential structures in all of Western architecture, such as the palace of Versailles and the magnificent lost complex at Marly, which contemporaries deemed a veritable "Paradise on Earth." The authors give full attention to unrealized projects and depict completed structures not as they stand today, if indeed they stand at all, but as they were originally designed by the leading architects of the day.

Meticulously prepared over many years, Palaces of the Sun King presents a wealth of historically accurate watercolor illustrations, complemented by a sophisticated narrative, that together offer a fundamental reappraisal of the architecture of the reign of Louis XIV. Modern academics have clarified the function of the political and social construct of the Sun King, but the nature and extent of the parallel architectural revolution which Louis XIV engendered have remained largely unquestioned out of veneration for a national treasure. Time, too, has seen the disappearance or destruction of many of the châteaux and architectural designs commissioned by the king, and in deciding to recreate lost buildings and unexecuted designs, the authors open new realms of discovery for a subject heretofore deemed thoroughly understood. Here, then, the Sun King's masterworks are reconsidered and deconstructed, providing a work of groundbreaking investigation that will both fascinate and inform.