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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
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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 Guidebooks (Nature)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 Nature Guidebook Category
are listed below:
 Winner:Canoe
Country Flora
By Mark Stensaas, illustrated by Jeff Sonstegard, published by Pfeifer-Hamilton.
Canoe Country Flora covers a choice selection of trees, shrubs and wildflowers
in the broad swath of territory extending from Northern Minnesota to Maine.
The author has fun with the book, taking a different tact than most identification
guides. He describes how to identify plants, of course, but he does
so in a light, pleasant style and supplements the text with a fascinating
study of plants' natural and cultural histories.
Winner:A
Field Guide to Snakes of Florida
By Alan Tennant. Published by Gulf Publishing
Company.
Longtime herpetologist Alan Tennant skillfully
combines scientific data with straightforward comments and observations
to make this book an invaluable resource tool for identifying and appreciating
Florida's remarkable snake population. A well crafted and organized
guidebook, it has understandable text and crisp, easy-to-use color photographs
of every snake described in the book.
 Honorable
Mention: Colorado
Nature Almanac
By Stephen R. Jones and Ruth Carol Cushman.
Published by Pruett Publishing Company.
Wonderfully readable and well-researched, this
is a month-to-month guide to the rhythms of nature in Colorado. It
includes wildflower blooming charts, bird arrival times, a naturalist's
where-to-go directory, and entertaining facts about the state's flora and
fauna.
 Winner:Scats
and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains: A Field Guide to the Signs of 70 Wildlife
Species
By James Halfpenny, Ph.D. Illustrated by Todd Telander and Designed
by Dana Kim-Wincapaw. Published by Falcon Publishing.
In this book, conveniently sized to fit in the back pocket, nationally
renowned tracker, Dr. James Halfpenny helps decipher the signs left behind
by mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. The 145-page guide is
a real bargain and includes clear and understandable drawings and concise
descriptions of the scats, tracks and gait patterns of 70 Rocky Mountain
species.
 Winner:
Guide
to Marine Mammals & Turtles of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico
By Kate Wynne and Malia Schwartz
Illustrated by Garth Mix
Published by Rhode Island Sea Grant, University of Rhode Island
This is an extraordinarily well done and easy-to-use guidebook that
will help you identify marine mammals while traveling the coastal waters
of the east. Printed on water-resistant paper, it covers whales, dolphins,
porpoises, seals, manatee and turtles. It's truly a model guidebook.
Each and every detail has been designed with user convenience in mind,
from its organization and lay-out, to its photographs and map graphics,
to its carefully researched and understandable writing.
 Winner:Butterflies
Through Binoculars: A Field Guide to the Butterflies of Western North America.
By Jeffrey Glassberg. Published by Oxford University Press, New York.
This magnificently crafted guidebook is illustrated
with vivid color photographs that set a new standard in butterfly identification.
It's a guide that can quickly grow on you. In no time, you may find
yourself hopelessly hooked--and haunting the fields and forests searching
for those delicate insects that add so much color to summer afternoons.
Honorable Mention:
The
Raptor Almanac: A Comprehensive Guide to Eagles, Hawks, Falcons and
Vultures. By Scott Weidensaul.
Published by The Lyons Press, New York.
A far-reaching reference and guide to raptors,
this book is for those bird-watching enthusiasts who want to go beyond
the fundamentals. Its contents include raptor evolution, behavior,
courtship, nesting, migration, and more.
 Winner.
Lichens of North America. By Irwin M. Brodo, Sylvia
Duran Sharnoff and Stephen Sharnoff. Published by Yale University
Press, New Haven. ISBN 0300082495.
When you spend time in the outdoors you'll see them: rocks with crusty
patterned growths of orange and yellow, trees with dangling, wispy dark
green beards, and forest floors laid with a soft, creamy, moss-like carpet.
They're lichens and this is the book to use to identify them: the first
definitive guide to lichens in North America. It's a masterpiece
of imagery, text and science. Be prepared: it's comprehensive, nearly
800 pages long, but the authors and publisher have carefully designed it
to be useful to all, specialists and novices, alike.
Honorable Mention.
Bird Tracks & Sign: A Guide to North American Species.
By Mark Elbroch and Eleanor Marks. Published by Stackpole Books,
Mechanicsburg, PA. ISBN 0811726967.
Bird Tracks & Sign is an innovative, major new contribution
to the study of North American birds and is destined to become an indispensable
reference.
Winner. Mammal
Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American Species. By Mark Elbroch.
Published by Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA. ISBN 0811726266
Mammal Tracks and Sign is one of the most thorough and complete
guides to animal tracking ever published. Going beyond where other
books leave off, it combines text, drawings, maps and more than 1,000 color
photos to unravel the mysteries of North American mammal tracks and signs.
Mark Elbroch has poured himself into this book, writing the text, taking
the photos and preparing the drawings. It's a monumental effort and
an invaluable reference for anyone who enjoys tracking and viewing wildlife.
Honorable Mention.
The
Rockfishes of the Northeast Pacific. By Milton S. Love, Mary
Yoklavich, and Lyman Thorsteinson. Published by University of California
Press, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 0520234383
Who says that scientists can't have a little fun? This 400-page,
well-illustrated and scrupulously scientific book is a significant contribution
to our understanding of the rockfishes. It's also a delight to read.
Winner. Snakes of the
Southeast. By Whit Gibbons and Mike
Dorcas. The University
of Georgia Press, Athens,
GA. ISBN
0820326526
Snakes of the Southeast
is an eye-catching new nature guidebook melding good descriptive writing, a
dapper design and strikingly crisp photographs.
The 52 species of snakes found in the southeast are fully covered: size charts, distribution maps, key
identifiers, habitat descriptions. It's
all there in one very nicely wrapped package.
 Honorable Mention. Nature's Strongholds:
The World's Great Wildlife Reserves.
By Laura and William Riley. Princeton
University Press, Princeton. ISBN 0691122199
This 672-page tome is a guide to some of the wildest,
most wildlife-filled places on earth. It
was a massive undertaking, but writers and conservationists, Laura and William
Riley were up to the task and brought it off with aplomb.
 Winner.
Yellowstone Expedition
Guide: The Modern Way to Explore America's
Oldest National Park. By Charissa Reid. TravelBrains, Inc., Bedford,
NH.
ISBN 1933763000
This is a state-of-the-art,
technologically savvy guidebook
for visitors of Yellowstone National
Park. It's
packed full of beta, including information on the area's geology, its
hydrothermal features, plants, animals, and hiking trails.
Topping it off are two included CD's:
one is an audio tour which can be played as
you visit different parts of the park, and the other contains movies
and
panoramic photo tours which can be viewed on your computer.
 Winner. Caterpillars of Eastern North America. By
David L. Wagner. Princeton
University
Press, Princeton. ISBN
# 0691121443
It's a
caterpillar lover's delight: a copiously
illustrated guide to the
caterpillars of nearly 700 butterflies and moths found east of the Mississippi. Many of the
caterpillars included in the volume have never been photographed. The guide is nicely designed and easy to use
with clear and crisp photographs of both the larva and adult stages.
End
of Listing
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