Customer Reviews

Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an awesome book of personal accounts, illustrations, and photographs of magnificent individuals of Pacific coast conifers. Van Pelt knows these trees like no one else, having journied to, measured, and stood in awe at each of the giants depicted. His writes with witty reverence and from a deep understanding of the ecology of giant trees. Featured in the book are the author's beautiful line drawings of the trees, which capture the amazing structural complexity of their crowns in a way not possible with photographs. This book is a must for all tree lovers and those interested in coffee table adventuring into the last great forests of the Pacific coast.

This book rocks! It inspires as well as informs! The line drawings are especially amazing. Van Pelt selects specific angles for each drawing, such that he captures the unique qualities of each individual tree. These renderings are beautiful and accurate. Each one can be studied for hours. The photographs could have been a bit more creative, but he follows an effective strategy by showing a human in most pictures. This allows the reader to understand the immense size of these giants. The text provides an excellent natural history, conveying to the reader an intertwined tale of ecology, history, and discovery. Lastly, I was especially impressed with the fact that Van Pelt included so many tree species and individuals. By doing this he has allowed us to truly appreciate the diversity, beauty and uniqueness of these amazing trees.

This book affects people deeply. Certainly it did me. It is a simple and absolutely passionately beautiful account of giant trees, how they're discovered, how they're measured. Van Pelt's drawings are amazing. I think this book is a classic and I think it will live in print for many, many years.

This is a must see, must read book about "Forest Giants." If I had the loot to RV this would be a road map to follow. As a nurseryman I appreciated the detailed information about each species, the beautiful handrawn representatives of each major tree of the group -- be it Incense Ceder, Fir, Spruce etc.

Despite 35 plus years in horticulture, this book had much I could learn from. It is wonderfully written and illustrated.

I cannot think of no better book I could have gifted myself for my Christmas yet to come.

Secateur

We have been reading and collecting books about trees and wood for quite some time now, so Forest Giants... caught our attention. We do visit `trees' from time to time, so the opportunity to call on familiar trees once again was intriguing.

It seemed the author's intention to create a useful guidebook, thus he has done a marvelous job of locating and describing the trees. The addition of the lovely, hand drawn portraits makes the book quite personal and reveals Mr. Van Pelt's great love of the trees. The photos also seem homemade and have not been overly processed, so they have a `snapshot-for-the-scrapbook' look also. Together with the rather prosaic text, they draw the reader into daydreaming about the trees and being with them. We liked that aspect of the book very much. The author's enthusiasm will be infectious to some; we hope that this book will inspire the preservation of these incredible living individuals. (Yes, it's possible we were once Druids.)

The softbound cover was a great disappointment in a $30 book. It deserves a hard cover and so we will most likely make a hard slipcover for it ourselves, since Forest Giants... will go into our library.

Plainly stated, this book has a ton of information. The author has experience and insight for giant west coast trees that few other folks understand. He has hiked, studied, and climbed among these trees.

The book is generous with substantial size color photos, plus gorgeous black and white drawings done by Van Pelt. If you have a big appetite for tree stuff, get a copy.

I noticed a review of this book above, by Richard Preston, who I think is the author of The Wild Trees. Whatever Preston wrote earlier about Forest Giants, then I add +1 too.

What a story! The author is a big favorite of mine for his books on Ebola and other virus hunts. But this tale is just as much a hunt for the unknown in the canopies of the giant redwoods, a territory never before explored.

The characters and the author himself all perform life-threatening feats of bravery to find out what lives up in the tops of these huge trees.

Couldn't put it down!