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OUTDOOR BOOK REVIEWS HOME PAGE
NEWS & COMMENTARY
WINNERS OF THE NATIONAL OUTDOOR
BOOK AWARDS (NOBA)
NOBA WINNERS BY CATEGORY:
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
NATURAL HISTORY
LITERATURE
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY
NATURE & ENVIRONMENT
CLASSIC AWARD
DESIGN/ARTISTIC MERIT
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
GUIDES (ADVENTURE)
GUIDES (NATURE)
INSTRUCTIONAL BOOKS
BEST BOOK LISTS:
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
ADVENTURE'S 100 BEST
ADVENTURE BOOKS
CHESSLER'S TOP 100
CLIMBING BOOKS
SIERRA MAGAZINE
READER'S FAVORITE
BOOKS
OUTSIDE'S 25 BEST
BOOKS OF THE LAST
100 YEARS
ASLE'S TOP 12
ENVIRONMENTAL BOOKS
THE REVIEWS 10 MOST
INFLUENTIAL
ENVIRONMENT BOOKS
OUTDOOR EDUCATION
SURVEY: BEST BOOKS
RECOMMENDATIONS:
TRAVEL LITERATURE BY
JEFF TUCKER
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
BY LIAM GUILAR
RIVER LITERATURE BY
LIAM GUILAR
THE OUTDOOR EXPERIENCE READING LIST:
READING LIST FOR AN
OUTDOOR LITERATURE
COURSE
OTHER SUGGESTIONS:
HUMBLE SUGGESTIONS
(A Few of Our Editor's
Own Works)
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Winners
of the Design and Artistic Merit Category
National
Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA)
The most important book award
program in the outdoor field is the National
Outdoor Book Awards. Past winners of the Design Category are listed
below:
Winner. Surfboards by Guy
Motil. Falcon Guides, Guilford,
CT.
ISBN 9780762746217.
This consummately designed and
photographed book is about those sleek and simple contrivances that allow
surfers to harness the natural power of an ocean wave. Much of Guy Motil's life has been entwined
with the sport, and the text clearly bears out his intimate understanding of
boards and their myriad permutations.
Whether you're a surfing dabbler or a serious devotee, it won't
disappoint. One look at this sumptuous
book and you'll agree. It's a must-have.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Winner. Bruce Aiken's Grand Canyon: An
Intimate Affair. Paintings by Bruce
Aiken. Text by Susan Hallsten
McGarry. Grand Canyon
Association, Grand Canyon, AZ. ISBN 9780938216933
For
thirty years Bruce Aiken lived in a remote side canyon
of the Grand Canyon.
There he tended to the National Park's water supply. And there he
perfected his art. This long awaited book showcases some of
Aiken’s most stunning pieces portraying the canyon in his own unique
style of vivid
colors and intimate details. The accompanying
text written by Susan Hallsten McGarry very nicely complements Aiken's
work by
providing perspective on his art and biographical information on his
life.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
Honorable Mention. Soul of the Heights: 50 Years Going to the
Mountains. Photographs and text by
Ed Cooper. Falcon Guides, Guilford,
CT.
ISBN 9780762745272
Ed Cooper was a pioneer climber in 1950s and 60s, making
many important first ascents in Canada,
the North Cascades and Yosemite. In addition to his climbing experience, he is
also an outstanding photographer, having published his work in a wide variety
of magazines and books. In this moving
and graphically striking book, Ed Cooper uses story and photographs to take the
reader on a personal 50-year journey of his love affair with mountains.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
 Winner. Yosemite in the Sixties. Photographs by Glen Denny. Essays by Kevin Starr, Steve Roper and Glen
Denny. Patagonia
and T. Adler Books, Santa Barbara, CA. ISBN 0979064909.
This is Yosmite in the golden age: the big walls, the
climbing action, the quiet times, the high times, the whole gamut of life and
rock. Glen Denny, no slouch as a climber
himself, was the era's premier photographer.
The book's crisp and clear, black and white reproductions are perfectly
complemented by insightful essays by Denny, Steve Roper and Kevin Starr. Yosemite in the 1960s ushered in a period of
fast-paced growth, advancing technique, and a lifestyle of total
commitment. Thankfully Glen Denny was
there to capture it.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
 Winner.
Arctic Wings: Birds of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. Edited by Stephen Brown. The Mountaineers Books, Seattle. ISBN 0898869765.
Arctic Wings
establishes a new benchmark in the art and literature of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. This is not only a book
of exceptional photography, but it also includes solid and factual information,
along with a series of essays by noted biologists and conservationists. Topping off this stylish, impressively
designed book is an included CD of the birdsongs of the refuge.
More Information or Purchase: Amazon.com
 Winner:Track
of the Tiger
Edited by Maurice Hornocker. Andy Lewis, Art
Director. Tom Lewis, Design Director. Produced by Tehabi Books and
published by Sierra Club Books.
Track of the Tiger is a compelling and
masterfully designed book with rich, stunning photography by some of the
world's best nature photographers. Nine essays, edited by eminent
biologist, Maurice Hornocker, bring alive this magnificent and legendary
animal, the largest of the world's cats.
Honorable
Mention: 100 Classic Hikes in
Washington
By Ira Spring and Harvey Manning. Jennifer
Shontz, Graphic Coordinator. Marge Mueller, Cartography. Published
by The Mountaineers.
Conservationists and venerable Pacific Northwest
guidebook writers, Ira Spring and Harvey Manning describe 100 of the best
hikes in Washington. This is a beautifully arranged book, with exquisite
color photography and a new and promising type of map graphic giving readers
a visual representation of trail lay-out.
 Winner:Wildflowers
of the Appalachian Trail.
By Leonard Adkins. Photographs by Joe and
Monica Cook. Grant M. Tatum, Creative Director. Published by Menasha
Ridge Press.
From a practical standpoint, this book is a field
identification guide of the flora of the 2,100-mile Appalachian trail--and
an excellent one at that. But it is much more than a guidebook.
It is a work of art and a feast for the eyes. Wildflowers of the
Appalachian Trail is designed with grace and elegance and filled with
exquisite, full-page color photographs. It is rare to find a guidebook
where every photograph is perfect, but this is one. If you're hiking
or traveling in the Appalachian country, this is one book that you don't
want to be without.
Honorable
Mention: Spotted Bear: A Rocky Mountain Folktale
By Hanneke Ippisch. Illustrated by Hedvig Rappe-Flowers. Designed
by Kim Ericsson. Kathleen Ort, Editor-in-Chief. Published by Mountain
Press Publishing.
This enchanting children's book is the story of how bears, some bears,
at least, get their spots. It is a wonderfully designed book and
beautifully illustrated with Hedvig Rappe-Flowers' rich and colorful paintings.
For young children--and adults too--it is certain to provoke wonder and
excitement.
 Winner:
Bradford
Washburn: Mountain Photography
Photography by Bradford Washburn. Edited and Compiled by Antony
Decaneas. Published by the Mountaineers
Traveling the world for eight decades, mountaineer, explorer, scientist
and cartographer Bradford Washburn has documented the world's landscapes
like no other. This is his life's work as seen through his own camera:
one hundred large format mountain photographs, all exquisitely reproduced.
The book includes a short interview with Washburn, but it is the photos
which speak volumes about him and his artistic genius.
 Winner: The
Living Wild. Photography by Art
Wolfe. Published by Wildlands Press, Seattle.
This is a book that will take your breath away.
The
Living Wild is a technical and intellectual marvel, providing a photographic
celebration of the diversity of life inhabiting our planet. Celebrated
nature photographer Art Wolfe took three years to produce the color photographs
of 140 different species from 40 different countries that grace the pages
of this large format book. Wolfe is clearly at the top of his game
in The Living Wild, and this book should reinforce his position
among the best nature photographers in the field. Using a highly effective
combination of lens size and perspective, he almost brings the viewer into
the photograph, blurring the boundaries of real and artificial. It's
a sight to behold.
Winner.
Wilder Mississippi. Photographs by Stephen Kirkpatrick.
Text by Marlo Carter Kirkpatrick. Design by Heidi Flynn Allen.
Published by The Marvelous Works, Madison, MS. ISBN
0961935359.
No matter where you are—in the city, in an office, or in a bookstore
in a busy shopping center—open this book to the first page, you're suddenly
someplace else: to a place of quiet sounds, the flutter of wings,
the rustle of a white tail, the drip of morning dew. This is a book
of subtleties, of elegance and of mesmerizing images of Mississippi's natural
world. Stephen Kirkpatrick's brilliant and captivating photography
is complemented with an equally captivating design. So carefully
executed are the design elements that even the text of the book's subtitles
resembles reeds protruding from the surface of a pond. It all comes
together beautifully and harmoniously, a joyful pictorial hymn, celebrating
the wilderness of Mississippi.
Amazon.com: More
Information or Purchase
Honorable
Mention. The Southwest's Contrary Land: Forever
Changing Between Four Corners and the Sea of Cortes. By Craig
Childs. Designed by Mary Winkelman Velgos. Photography Editor:
Peter Ensenberger. Published by Arizona Highways Books. Phoenix.
AZ. ISBN1893860191.
For many years, Arizona Highways has been publishing colorful, high
quality books of the Southwest—and this is one that excels both pictorially
and textually. Craig Childs' sensitive and inspired text is supplemented
by intelligent design and magnificent photography.
Winner.
First Light: Acadia National Park and Maine's Mount Desert
Island. Photography by Tom Blagden, Jr. Text by Charles
R. Tyson, Jr. Published by Westcliffe Publishers, Englewood, CO.
ISBN 1565794729
First Light is one of those rare books that excels in all measures
of an artistic achievement. It's an impressive and fitting tribute
to Acadia, the Northeast's only national park. From Tom Blagden's
inspiring and impassioned photography to the book's careful and sensitive
design, and to the printer's nearly perfect reproduction, this work sparkles
and dazzles. Quite simply, First Light is a tour de force.
Winner.
Edge of the Earth, Corner of the
Sky. Photography by Art Wolfe. Essays by Art Davidson. Wildlands Press, Seattle. ISBN 0967591821
Nine years in the making and photographed on seven
continents, Edge of the Earth
showcases an artist at the peak of his powers.
While largely known for his striking wildlife photography, Art Wolfe
proves in this volume that he is equally adept at capturing natural landscapes. Wolfe hopes that his work will motivate
others to protect wild lands whose destruction he has witnessed first
hand. Perhaps, that's why the book's
images are so haunting: places of
temporal beauty, living on borrowed time in a world ever hungry for land and resources.
 Winner.
The Mountains Know Arizona.
Photographs by Michael Collier.
Text by Rose Houk. Designed by
Mary Winkelman Velgos. Arizona
Highways, Phoenix. ISBN 1893860876
This book started with a wish that would have been difficult
to achieve under any circumstances: tell
the story of Arizona through the
perspective of its mountain ranges. Arizona,
after all, is a desert state. But
photographer Michael Collier and writer Rose Houk did just that. From seven of Arizona's
mountain ranges, we learn something of the state's first inhabitants, its
settlers and fortune seekers, its diversity of landforms and ecosystems, and
even something of contemporary life.
This is a stylish and satisfying book and a testament to a wish come
true.
 Winner. Mountain Ranges of Colorado. Photographed and Written by John
Fielder. Designed by Mark Mulvany. Westcliffe Publishers, Englewood, CO. ISBN 1565794966
This is a magnificent book! Mountain
Ranges of Colorado is a milestone in the art of mountain photography. It's also a labor of love, the culmination of
fifteen years of dedicated photographic exploration throughout the mountains of
Colorado. Everything about this book is impressive from
the solid cover which resembles a smooth piece of Rocky
Mountain granite, to its cohesive
and intelligent design, to John Fielder's masterful photography.
 Winner. Wings
of Spring:
Courtship, Nesting and Fledging. Photographs
by Tom Vezo. Text by
Chuck Hagner. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg,
PA.
ISBN 9780811701419
Wings of Springs
represents some of the finest photography of birds ever published: a Great Egret tossing a stream of brightly
lit water droplets, a Wilson's Snipe standing on one leg forlorn in
June snowfall,
a Western Screech-Owl dangling a lizard from its beak.
One is amazed at the days and countless hours
photographer Tom Vezo spent patiently waiting for these moments that he
has so
elegantly captured. Complementing Vezo's
photography is a comfortable and inviting design, and just the right
amount of
text to make the book useful as a bird guide as well as work of
artistry.
 Winner.
100 Caterpillars.
By Jeffrey C. Miller, Daniel H. Janzen and
Winifred Hallwachs. The Belnap Press of Harvard
University
Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0674021908
This is an exquisite book portraying
the caterpillars of Costa Rica
in impressively sharp and brilliant color
photographs. The lay-out and design is
flawless. The accompanying text is
complete and
satisfying. The authors clearly want to
share their discoveries and wonders of their work with everyone—not
just with
fellow biologists, but with all who are fascinated with the infinite
variety of
the natural world—and in that effort, they have succeeded beyond
measure.
End
of Listing
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