Customer Reviews

America's Spectacular National Parks

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This is a coffee-table book about America's national parks. They are grouped into regions, each getting 2-6 pages of treatment. The photographs are beautiful.

The accompanying text adds little, mostly the kind of information you'd get from the park website In addition, there are minor factual errors scattered throughout: Theodore Roosevelt did not create Lassen Volcanic NP in 1916 because Woodrow Wilson was president; Wrangell-St. Elias NP is not 20,000 square miles large; and North Cascades should not be organized in the "Rockies" region but in the "West" with Mount Rainier and Olympic. There's really no reason to goof like this, when the information is easily available on the internet. In addition, the text is printed in a small font that is difficult to read.

I realize that the point of a coffee table book is to have pretty pictures, and this book delivers those. If the authors wanted the book to be a sampler for vacation ideas, maps of the parks would have been helpful. Why have a text if it's lousy and occasionally inaccurate? Just put captions on the photos and you're done.

From glaciers to volcanos, from deserts to waterways, the national parks of the United States are a resource belonging to the people. America's Spectacular National Parks is a gorgeous book celebrating our ownership of this resource, and it's a treasure in its own right.

The book begins with a brief history of the acquisition of the parks, beginning with Yellowstone in 1872. How do we keep the parks accessible while curtailing traffic? Has environmental education been successful in shifting public interest "from scenery to science?" What amenities are essential for the comfort of visitors and how do we integrate these needs with the parks' unique ecosystems? Our commitment is won with glorious photography and brief essays about fifty of our parks.

Editors Letitia Burns O'Connor and Dana Levy have organized the book by region from east to west. Each park from Maine's Acadia to Hawaii Volcanoes is featured with a two- to four-page spread by some of the country's most eminent nature photographers, among them Craig Blacklock (The Lake Superior Images), David Muench and Marc Muench (Canticle of the Earth: The Words of Francis of Assisi Celebrated in the Photography of David Muench; California: Portrait of a State (Portrait of a Place)), and Mike Sedam (The Olympic Peninsula: The Grace and Grandeur). There are a number of fold-out panoramas and the color values are breathtaking. If you can't go there, at least experience our wild places with this big, beautiful book.

At 16 x 12 inches and 132 pages, with full photographs on the covers and dustjacket, "National Parks" is a great addition to anyone's "coffee table library." It's a wonderful present -- that's how I got mine, from a good friend, and I love it. Consider yourself invited to remember our heritage; the National Park Service was established by Congress in 1916 with the following stated purpose:

"...To conserve the scenery and the national and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

We and our children are those future generations. Enjoy!

Linda Bulger, 2008

Wow! Just look at the front cover. Arches National Park. Or the back cover. Yosemite. The book has a simple mission, exemplified by this line at the outset of the book (Page 8): "Travel through these pages and discover the fascinating natural wonders of 'America's Spectacular National Parks.'" An Amazon Friend reviewed this and I could not resist the temptation to purchase this volume. And I'm glad that I did!

This is a classic coffee table book. My trusty tape measure says that this is a 16 inch by 12 inch book. The photography is well done, giving a sense of the grandeur of the nation's national parks. Having seen some of these parks, I must confess that no photo can truly capture the wonder of these places (e.g., The Grand Canyon).

The book itself begins with a bit of the history of the national park system and how it evolved. But the heart of the book is the photos and brief descriptions of each. The organization is straightforward--by geography.

First, the eastern parks. Acadia and Shenandoah and the Great Smoky Mountains. Page 20 features a gorgeous photo of the Smoky Mountains at dawn, with the pink coloration absolutely stunning.

The Midwest? Think of places like the Badlands or Mammoth Caves or Wind Cave. Photos on pages 34-35 illustrate the austere beauty of the Badlands.

The Southwest. . . . Big Bend, Carlsbad Caverns, Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and many more. The photos of Bryce Canyon (pages 56-57) look almost otherworldly. Captivating!

Other regions where national parks are described--Rocky Mountains (Great Basin, Yellowstone, Grand Teton), Alaska (e.g., Glacier Bay, Lake Clark, Katmai), and the West (Death Valley, Yosemite, Crater Lake, Redwoods).

This is a beautiful book and makes any reader realize some of the natural wonders inside the boundaries of the United States. If you want a taste of such beauty, this book will satisfy the reader.

Beautiful scenes of America that we often forget we have. It inspires one to travel at home to see it all.

I might never get to Alaska but this book with its great photos helped me to imagine what it would look like if I ever got the chance to travel to some of the more remote places.

Extraordinary coffee table style book.
Gorgeous photography.
Many National Parks.
Highly recommended.
I bought 2 copies!!!
Michae

I love paging through this book. The pictures are beautiful and the different perspectives of the scenery are appreciated. The scenes make me want to plan a trip to many of the places selected to see them in person.

Just to add on. To see more great scenic shots, see books by David Muench, Galen Rowell, Art Wolfe, among the very best nature photographers/writers out there, not to mention many others.

Wildlife photography? See them. Arthur Morris, Tim Fitzharris