Tis' the season to begin holiday gift buying. As a former bookseller, I have to admit that I was always surprised that the beautiful, expensive books were purchased at the end of the season. With concerns about the supply chain, I decide to alert you to some gift book selections in the $50 plus category.
Underwater Wild : My Octopus Teacher's Extraordinary World by Craig Foster, Ross Frylinck, Introduction by Jane Goodall $50
From the creators of the Academy Award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher, an immersive journey into the underwater world that inspired it. My Octopus Teacher has captivated millions who long to connect with the natural world. Now, with Underwater Wild, the divers behind the film reveal a new vision of the sea, one full of wonder, new insights into marine biology, and life-changing teachings for even the most land-bound of us.
Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck regularly dive together in the awe-inspiring kelp forests off South Africa, without wetsuits or oxygen tanks. Craig had dived this way for years, including alongside the octopus that inspired My Octopus Teacher. In Ross, he found a kindred spirit, someone who also embraced the ancient methods of acclimating his body to frigid waters, but whose eyes had not yet adjusted to the transcendent wonder Craig saw each time they dove. In the heart-wrenching stories that make up this unforgettable book, we swim alongside Ross as he grows from skeptic to student of the underwater wild. And in the revelatory marine science behind the stunning photos, we learn how to track sea hares, cuttlefish, and limpets, and we witness strange new behaviors never before documented in marine biology. We realize that a whole world of wonder, and an innate wildness within us all, emerge anew when we simply observe.
Baobab by Beth Moon, $49.95
Baobabs are one of Africa’s natural wonders: they can live more than 2,500 years, and their massive, water-storing trunks can grow to more than one hundred feet in circumference. They also serve as a renewable source of food, fiber, and fuel, as well as a focus of spiritual life. But now, suddenly, the largest baobabs are dying off , literally collapsing under their own weight. Scientists believe these ancient giants are being dehydrated by drought and higher temperatures, likely the result of climate change.
Photographer Beth Moon, has undertaken a new photographic pilgrimage to bear witness to this environmental catastrophe and document the baobabs that still survive. In this oversize volume, she presents breathtaking new duotone tree portraits of the baobabs of Madagascar, Senegal, and South Africa. She also recounts her eventful journey to visit these fantastic trees in a moving diaristic text studded with color travel photos.
Baobab is not only a compelling photo book and travel narrative, but also a timely ecological warning.
The Beatles: Get Back by The Beatles by Peter Jackson, Hanif Kureishi, Ethan A. Russell, Linda McCartney $60
The Beatles: Get Back is the official account of the creation of their final album, Let It Be, told in The Beatles’ own words, illustrated with hundreds of previously unpublished images, including photos by Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartney. Half a century after the 1970 Let It Be album and film, this milestone book coincides with the global release of Peter Jackson’s documentary feature film, The Beatles: Get Back.
The book opens in January 1969, the beginning of The Beatles’ last year as a band. The BEATLES (The White Album) is at number one in the charts and the foursome gather in London for a new project. Over 21 days, first at Twickenham Film Studios and then at their own brand-new Apple Studios, with cameras and tape recorders documenting every day’s work and conversations, the band rehearse a huge number of songs, culminating in their final concert, which famously takes place on the rooftop of their own office building, bringing central London to a halt.
The Beatles: Get Back tells the story of those sessions through transcripts of the band’s candid conversations. Drawing on over 120 hours of sound recordings, leading music writer John Harris edits the richly captivating text to give us a fly-on-the-wall experience of being there in the studios. These sessions come vividly to life through hundreds of unpublished, extraordinary images by two photographers who had special access to their sessions—Ethan A. Russell and Linda Eastman (who married Paul McCartney two months later). Also included are many unseen high-resolution film-frames, selected from the 55 hours of restored footage from which Peter Jackson’s documentary is also drawn.
- To create this gorgeous new book, acclaimed photographer Art Wolfe traveled to every continent to explore and document the nighttime world of animals, humans, and nature. From a blazing sunset over Antarctic ice to Tokyo’s nighttime street racers to coffee with Brazilian cowboys as the dawn breaks, this book is an unparalleled feast for the eyes, and a never-before-collected glimpse into a world that comes to life as most of us are sleeping. Highlights include:
- - Africa: Hustle and bustle in Morocco’s nighttime markets.
- - Asia: Balinese fire dancers.
- - The Americas: Bison in an icy sunrise.
- - Europe: Volcanic eruptions in Iceland.
- - Antarctica: Colonies of penguins awaking to the dawn.
- - Oceania: Star trails over the Australian Outback.
Jim Harrison: Complete Poems by Jim Harrison, Introduction by Terry Tempest Williams $40
From the Introduction by Terry Tempest Williams: "Jim Harrison...was among the great ones—an elevated soul in all his unruliness who favored his senses and courted the wild on the page and in the world. His was a storied life that loomed large, and we are the beneficiaries. 'Such a powerful wounded poet—wrote as if he had to sing with a cut throat . . . and he did have to sing,' said Jorie Graham."
Jim Harrison: Complete Poems is the definitive collection from one of America’s iconic writers. Introduced by activist and naturalist writer Terry Tempest Williams, this collection contains every poem Harrison published over his fifty-year career, as well as a section of previously unpublished "Last Poems." Here are the nature-based lyrics of his early work, the high-velocity ghazals, a harrowing prose-poem “correspondence” with a Russian suicide, the riverine suites, fearless meditations inspired by the Zen monk Crazy Cloud, and a joyous conversation in haiku-like gems with friend and fellow poet Ted Kooser. Weaving throughout these 1000 pages are Harrison’s legendary passions and appetites, his love songs and lamentations, and a clarion call to pay attention to the life you are actually living. Jim Harrison: Complete Poems confirms that Jim Harrison is a talented storyteller with a penetrating eye for details.
There is also a limited edition three volume set selling for $85. This set features a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay by a major literary figure for each volume: Colum McCann, Vol. I; Joy Williams, Vol II and John Freeman, Vol III
The Complete Birds of the World: Every Species Illustrated by Norman Arlott, Ber van Perlo, Jorge R. Rodriguez Mata, Gustavo Carrizo, Aldo A. Chiappe, Luis Huber $65
This is a book like no other—the only truly comprehensive, one-volume illustrated guide to all of the world’s birds, covering the complete International Ornithological Congress World Bird List. Featuring more than 300 stunning large-format, full-color plates, this accessible and authoritative encyclopedic reference presents incredibly detailed, accurate, and beautiful paintings of more than 10,700 species by some of the world’s best bird artists, led by the legendary Norman Arlott and Ber van Perlo. In addition, The Complete Birds of the World provides detailed but concise identification information about each species on facing pages—including facts about voice, habitat, and geographic distribution. The result is a visual and verbal feast that captures the astonishing variety of bird life around the planet—and that will be cherished by any birder.
Visit you local independent bookstore
Discover books and gifts for all ages
Buy a new book for yourself to read during December
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