Word reached me just this very morning about something I have long been anticipating: the publication of new editions this October of Charles Bowden’s classic works “Blue Desert” and “Frog Mountain Blues” by the University of Arizona Press.
Field guides are wonderful things – particularly those that feature top-quality photographs or illustrations of their subjects. But sometimes, high quality as they may be, it’s simply difficult to get a sense of the animal, plant, or what-have-you as it is in life without being able to see it life-size. Which is why so many naturalists have been praising University of Chicago’s “Six Hundred Life-Size” books; they present their subjects, just as the title says, in life-size.