THE pop-up guide The Human Body has been a popular classic since its
publication a decade ago. David Pelham鈥檚 designs and Jonathan Miller鈥檚 words
combine dazzling clarity with pizzazz and good physiology. Make a heart beat,
lungs breathe and muscles contract, all in 3D. Ten years on, it鈥檚 still
wonderful.
Also fun is Skeletons, built around 18 large-format pictures of bleached
skeletons. Most of them are mammals, but there is one fish, a couple of birds
and the odd reptile. The language is simple, with captions limited to 鈥渢high
bone鈥�, 鈥渟houlder bones鈥� and so on. But the descriptions of how form and
function interact are good 鈥� and the message about how similar we all are
under the skin obvious enough. My six-year-old loved it.
Form and function are also at the heart of Bones, the best picture book on
the subject you are ever likely to come across. Lit by photographer Brian
Kosoff as if they were 1960s starlets showing off in an expensive studio, here
are 140 beautiful colour plates of eagle wishbones, rodent knees, bat snouts
and 鈥� suddenly and disturbingly 鈥� the skeleton of a small baby, with its huge
skull. The best sort of coffee-table book, this architecture of life also has
a scholarly but thoroughly readable text.
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Also a visual feast is Insects by John Brackenbury, a follow-up to his
prizewinning Insects in Flight. The text here is mostly captions. Marvel at
shots of a wasp being hit on the head by a raindrop. Then try and work out how
Brackenbury caught it by peering at his equipment, reflected in the
raindrop.
There is more mind and body-bending technique, this time by the insects
themselves, in the picture of copulating alder flies. The caption helpfully
explains that 鈥渢he male aligns himself behind his mate, grasping the end of
her abdomen between his forelegs, then arching his own abdomen forward over
his head to meet with hers.鈥� Don鈥檛 try this at home.
You might prefer Naturalist Summers, which is half country diary and half
an extended advertisement for courses run by the Field Studies Council. The
wordy style, full of leaden dialogue from nature rambles, is not to my taste.
The picture captions are collectors鈥� item in their awfulness. 鈥淚t was an
interesting hedge,鈥� reads one. And a book whose publisher thinks it requires a
foreword by David Bellamy does not inspire confidence. But it does pack in
lots of natural history. The best bits are the most esoteric: 鈥淟ife in a
cowpat鈥� is a delight.
Thoroughly commended, mainly for its thoroughness, is National Parks and
Other Wild Places. From Spitzbergen to Crete, Portugal to Poland, Bob Gibbons
lists and briefly describes 620 parks, reserves and plain beautiful places.
There are 250 maps, and notes on road access to each site, though sadly
nothing about getting there by train or bus. Gibbons is sketchy on parts of
south and east Europe: Romania gets only two pages, and Albania one, which
does not suggest close acquaintance. And the coverage is also almost entirely
land-based. But these are minor flaws in a guide that will make a superior
addition to your glove box.
Nature Worlds, in contrast, is a mess. Its 鈥渇ourteen unique foldout
panoramas of the world鈥檚 natural habitats鈥� comprise improbable-looking
collages of living things in each habitat, wrapped around with a confusing
system of captions, all written white on black for maximum eye strain. The
foldouts are destined quickiy to become dog-eared.
Another disappointment was Philip鈥檚 Atlas of the Oceans because it bears
such a startling similarity to the Mitchell Beazley/ World Conservation Union
oceans atlas, published in 1991 (Review, 30 November 1991). This may be
because John Pernetta, co-editor of the Mitchell Beazeley volume, is the
single author of Philip鈥檚 volume. The two books also share the same executive
editor and cartographic editor.
Philip鈥檚 volume turns out to be a revised version of a book first published
by Mitchell Beazley in 1977. Both imprints are outposts of the Reed Elsevier鈥檚
international publishing empire (as is New 杏吧原创). Philip鈥檚 atlas has more
science, while Mitchell Beazley shows more concern for the environment. The
one tells you how whales live; the other how they have died at the end of a
harpoon gun. Take your pick, but don鈥檛 buy both.
The Human Body by Jonathan Miller and David Pelham, Jonathan Cape, pp 6,
拢12.99
Skeletons by Jimmy Johnson and Elizabeth Gray, River Swift, pp 48,
拢9.99
Bones by R. McNeill Alexander, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp 224,
拢19.99
Insects by John Brackenbury, Blandford, pp 192, 拢19.99
Naturalist Summers by Ann Tate, Blandford, pp 200, 拢16.99
National Parks and Other Wild Places of Britain and Europe by Bob Gibbons,
New Holland, pp 288, 拢19.99
Nature Worlds by Tony Hare, Macmillan Reference, pp 200, 拢14.99
Philip鈥檚 Atlas of the Oceans by John Pernetta, Philip鈥檚, pp 200,
拢19.99