Customer Reviews

Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Although "Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air" by Gregory Dicum is more of an undersized coffee table book than serious writing, people like me are going to get sucked into this tome like the air through a jet turbine. You see, I, and apparently many more people than I previously thought, comprise an oddball group of travelers who actually relish the view from 35,000 feet and who always double check their reservations in advance to make sure, absolutely and unequivocally sure, that we have reserved a widow seat on our flight. Yes, we are those annoying people on the transcontinental flight where you have to call the flight attendant: "Sir, will you please pull down your widow shade....?" As one of my few fellow window seat freaks once put it, "Are you kidding? The view over the Grand Canyon is worth the hassle and cost of the flight alone!"

Therefore, the seminal concept of "Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air" is exiting enough. As one who has actually taken small binoculars and maps on flights, the mere thought of a book that would help guide me along designated flight patterns was enough to give me shivers of anticipation. Upon reading a brief review in the New York Times Book Review, the book immediately went on my list.

But don't toss the topographic and Rand McNally highway maps just yet, my fellow window seaters. Apparently, we may have a monstrous case of buyer beware here. The book clearly lacks much of what many would anticipate,i.e. window seat pictures and interpretations thereof. In fact, the majority of the book contains cropped satellite photos scaled to approximately 35,000 feet or greater. Although the pictures are of exquisite quality, they are not window seatpictures, and do not necessarily offer window seaters good insights as to what they may observe on say, their twelfth trip from Houston to Orange County, California.

The book is laid out according to geographical province: the Great Plains,the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast and so forth. The emphasis is on specific features, however, with much importance given to natural phenomena such as mountains, glaciers, lakes and rivers. Human made features such as farm acreage, manufacturing, refining as well as petroleum and mining operations are also depicted. Several major metropolitan are beautifully presented from cropped satellite photos. The accompanying text may be judged as annoyingly simplistic, but the glass may be half full here. This book could easily be read and understood by late elementary - early middle school ages.

So my criticism of the book remains guarded. Window seaters need to pause for a collective breath here; what we fantasize may not be realizable. Realistically, what do you normally see at 35,000 feet looking out the window, even on a clear ride? Whitish blue, with a few outlines, brief flashes of reflected light on water, an interstate cutting through a brown desert. I almost suspect that if Dicum had submitted true window seat pictures to editors he would have been rebuffed.

Conversely, many, myself included, have done cross country pictures from low altitude prop aircraft, but as with the satellite pictures, these do not effectively present the window seat world at 35,000 feet. Perhaps a true window seat project would be an immense undertaking, requiring permission to traverse frequently used flight paths with a converted commercial or private airline, retrofitted to take aerial photography at various and sundry angles.

So Dicum may be appealing to our best flight experiences. Oh, if I could have recorded what I saw taking off from John Wayne to Minneapolis, that one clear day. A "braked" steep takeoff. A grand sweep over the Pacific Ocean and subsequent view of Orange County then Riverside County, both Interstates 15 and 5 clear as a bell, all the way back to the ocean itself. Up over Mt. San Jacinto and northeast to the Colorado River and then to the Grand Canyon.

"Sir, will you please lower your shade....?"

".....No.... thank you"

This is a wonderful and desperately needed book, as evidenced by the fact that passengers are asked to close their window shades when flying over the Rocky Mountains so people can watch an insipid "altered for air travel" movie. And by the fact that most people do in fact close their shades and ignore what until a century ago was denied to all humans, a view of the Earth from miles above.

I did thumb through this book at a bookstore and bought it instantly. The satellite photos along with descriptions seem very helpful for interpreting landscapes from the air although I have not yet taken it on a flight.

It is not a technical book and would be suitable for intelligent teenagers, but unless you can already identify and explain moraines, eskers, drumlins, kettle ponds, and spillways and understand how 100,000 years of glacial action formed the lowland landscapes we see from the air, you will probably find this book educational as well as enjoyable. (The book will of course offer only a first introduction to these and similar matters.) The photos themselves are worth the price of the book.

(If you really love aerial photography, consider also getting a book such as EARTH FROM ABOVE by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, which is beautiful, educational, and more expensive.)

Okey dokey . . . this isn't a collection of low elevation aerial photographs. that's true. Some of the "reviewers" have taken great umbrage at that, as if it is deceitful and naughty of the author to have used the title he did -- at least the part before the colon. But, y'know what? There are windows EVEN in the ISS (a nearly three-foot optically-correct viewing window in the International Space Station), and this book makes incredibly effective use of satellite and high-orbit photographs (many of them technically "images," since they're not on film) to give us a knowing sense of how to analyze the world around us -- from the air.

And what a sublime gift that is! Dicum makes every image fit four or five different uses and purposes. The analysis is both accurate, which is nice, but also inspiring and tempting, which isn't something that can be said of every "overhead" book. The maps and explications are great, and the intelligence that goes into this struck me as inspiring. The perfect combination would be this book and, let's say, Erwin Raisz's fantastic, yet precise, landform maps (still available; try Google), which show the spine and design of the entire North American continent (and, in other sheets, several others). "Reading the Landscape from the Air" is exactly what this book's about, just as the works of JB Jackson or Michael Parfit or Grady Clay are about learning to look and see.

That said, this is kind of how-to guide, worthy on its own, but especially so for students of the land. I'd use it in a class. If you want pretty pictures (gorgeous ones), buy the fat (yet reasonably priced -- and wow, do I mean that!) *Earth From Above: 366 Days* by Arthus-Bertrand, or some of Georg Gerster's mind-blowing books. They specialize in near ground, often oblique, aerial photography, which gives an unparalleled sense of immediacy and omniscience. This book's instead about doing, seeing, thinking, and enjoying, and learning to understand what surrounds us -- all delivered from a high-elevation view that yields context, which is all-important in seeing from above. The privilege of high-sight is perhaps our greatest gift from the 20th century. This book, nicely produced at an incredibly affordable price from Chronicle Books, is a sweet and affordable work.

I love books that meld several subjects into a coherent whole. Window Seat does just that combining travel writing, geography, geology, with a smattering of history, environmental, and social commentary.

Ostensibly, Dicum wrote this for airplane travellers so they can understand what they're seeing from the window. While I could easily see a first time reader taking it along on a flight, I can't see someone lugging it along repeatedly. However, it's equally good for an armchair traveller seeking to remember (or imagine) what they saw because of the many, many illustrations. The heavy, glossy paper means the pictures are the equivalent quality of what you'd get in National Geographic.

The book's divided into self-contained regional sections like "The Pacific Northwest", so you can easily find where you're travelling to and from or just browse where you're most interested in. The format means you can easily read short bursts anywhere in the book without worrying about continuity. Also included are likely sites near airports and along heavily used flight paths like the FedEx hub, Orlando's Disney World, and SF Bay.

I especially like that he has short analyses of what you're seeing, such as the following excerpt:

..."In 1825, with the opening of the Erie Canal, the fertile and much more plow-friendly lands of the Midwest became available for American settlement, quickly emptying New England of farmers. Flying west across the Hudson River, over upstate New York, you are following the course of this migration; if you keep going, you'll find the missing farms in the Midwest.

"With the farmers gone, the New England forest regrew. ...These are the woods immortalized by Thoreau, and their resurgence in the past century is one of the brightest spots in America's ecological history."

I was the type of flyer who did her nails, read my book, and occasionally glanced out the window. Recently I flew from Harrisburg PA to Toronto, Canada on a sunny afternoon. Armed with "Window Seat" I began studying the landscape. What an eye opener: I saw a huge open pit coal mine, a military cemetery, and of course the usual farms, plus the Susquehanna! Later there was Niagara Falls,with all the generators etc., the Welland Canal and locks, and of course all the details of my home town: Toronto! I loved it. But Dicum was right: you do get a crick in the neck.

I used to fly alot on commercial flights and bought this to explore further my interest in geography from an aerial perspective. I was instantly disappointed as the photographs, with two exceptions, were high resolution images taken from satellites! That said, I realize that to show the highlights the author draws us towards, the crisp, detailed images he supplied are helpful as learning guides to acquaint our eyes with what to look for by way of patterns and the like. And, the author does mention his use of these orbital images on pages 13-14.

To understand why he took that approach, review the snapshot of the New York/Newark area on page 10. I've seen that view a number of times after leaving LaGuardia, heading south. Contrast that with the exquisite orbital image including the same area on pages 18-19. No comparison! Yet, the view on page 10 is what more of us would tend to see when we have a clear day, good sun angle, with clean, unscratched windows.

Mr. Dicum probably meant for this to be a quick reference, quick start guide for armchair travelers to whet their appetities. For those wanting to see general landscape views and especially clouds as seen at 30,000 feet, look up the book of the same title by Julieanne Kost. Keep in mind this latter work supplies little geographical interpretation. But, it is the real thing!

There is a dearth of works up to the claim of featuring aerial perspectives representative of the oblique views a passenger of commercial flights flying at 30,000 feet would see. The ones worth their salt, such as America from 500 Feet (Fortney & Fortney) and High Above the Canadian Rockies (Heinl) are outstanding, yet they capture tight, low altitude views more along the lines of that seen from a helicopter flight or a private plane. It may be that more people prefer close up shots rather than a spectacular wide angle view yielding slight detail.

I'm surprised that previous reviewers, privy to the experience of peering out from aerial perspectives and disappointed at the substance of this work by Dicum, didn't share with amazon shoppers the best, readily available resource for assisting in identifying many landforms and objects as seen from aerial perspectives. Go to your local commuter airport (which the small, private planes utilize) and purchase the respective sectional aeronautical charts for the geographical areas you'll be flying over. The 1:500,000 scale is excellent for assisting you in deciphering where you are. There are 37 of these that cover the lower 48 states. These show power line swaths, tall structures of note like smokestacks, and airport runway configurations, the latter a real help in pinpointing where you are at a given moment. Caveat: be somewhat discreet in your airborne use of these lest some overimaginiative passengers draw sinister motives to your benign interest in the landforms below.

Here's one that's hard to categorize: seventy aerial photos give a fine landscape view of the earth and mimic what you'd see from the window seat of a plane - but that's not all. Here's map showing major flight paths, profiles of different North American region landforms and waterways, tips on spotting major sites from the air - everything you need to take on the plane for an even more memorable trip!

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

Dicum is witty and intelligent in a way that few writers are. As a frequent airplane traveler (2 million miles on American!), his book added new interest to what had become the drudgery of business travel. I now find myself peering out the airplane window with delight and fascination! To be sure, after you read this book, you'll have a ready answer to the question: "Window or aisle?" I'm guessing this one will make a great gift for a beloved frequent flier.

A fun book for readers who are curious about the world around us. The author describes geologic and cultural forces that have shaped the landscape of the U.S. and Canada, in very readable prose accompanied by many satellite photos. He considers how landforms influenced human activity (e.g., growth of towns near water power along the fall line dividing the Piedmont from the coastal plain), and how culture and history shaped the landscape (e.g., the grid of township and mile-square section so visible on the landscape west of Cleveland; the curving street patterns of suburbs).

Of necessity in a small book (only about 175 pages with a goodly amount of white space) on a very big subject, the information given is wide-ranging but sometimes superficial or oversimplified. But, especially when reading about parts of the continent less familiar to me, I found much that was illuminating.

I have looked down at the giant circles of green or gold produced by pivot irrigation in the western plains many times without considering that their appearance, at about the 100th meridian, marks the start of the West, where crops cannot thrive without artificial irrigation. And I never knew about French long lots, visible in agricultural landscapes both in eastern Canada and the Louisiana bayou.

You can read the book straight through or just dip into the parts that interest you the most.

The satellite photos are small and it's not always easy to pick out the features the author refers to, and I noticed a few typos. On page 36, the number that marks the location of Cornell University is--as any Cornell grad could tell you--plainly in the wrong place. On the other hand, I think reviewers who dismiss the book because it doesn't provide photographs taken from an airplane miss the point. The satellite pictures are provided to illustrate the features the author describes, so that you will better understand what you see when you are in an airplane.

One last quibble: Writers who use "reading the landscape," or a play on those words, in the title of their book might consider giving credit to May Theilgaard Watts, author of the original Reading the Landscape (Reading the Landscape: An Adventure in Ecology, later revised and expanded as Reading the Landscape of America). For a much earlier version of the view from a window seat, read her chapter "Looking Down on Improved Property."

I suffered one of the risks of buying books online with the purchase of this book... if I had been able to thumb thru it in a bookstore, there is no way I would have bought it.

I read about this book in an airline magazine and thought it sounded interesting. The article (and the book's introduction) promised to help decode the land below from the view of a window seat.. at 35,000 ft. However, the book has only a few token "window seat" pix, and instead if filled with *satellite* photos. What good is a satellite photo of the entire SF Bay Area if I'm going to be flying in? The views are complete different. I'm not orbiting overhead in space, I'm landing or flying over at a MUCH lower altitude.

Talk about bait and switch! The content was also woefully basic. It might be interesting for a 4th grader, but contained very few insights. If you are an even occasional flyer, there's not much to learn here. I think the *proposed* concept is still great for a book and hope someone actaully does a "window seat" flying guide. Maybe a pilot should take up this project. As for "Window Seat"..don't waste your money.