Cultured Travel Guide Books - Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air |
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $2.83
Your Save: $ 12.12 ( 81% )
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.00222
EAN: 9780811840866
ISBN: 0811840867
Label: Chronicle Books
Manufacturer: Chronicle Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: 2004-03-01
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Studio: Chronicle Books |
| Spotlight Customer Reviews: |
Customer Rating:  
Summary: Window Seat.
Comment: Window Seat is the ideal companion to anyone who flies - or even armchair fliers who like to look at the world..It is also a great little geography book of North America since it is divided into roughly geographical sections that contain a wealth of information about the earth below.Flying will never be the same for me! Also, the book makes a neat little present.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting content, wrong title
Comment: The book was interesting and full of cool photos...but it is poorly packaged and marketed. I picked up the book expecting it to be about air travel, planes, flight paths, etc, and what you see through the window on a flight from LAX to JFK, for example. Instead it is really just a geographical study of the country with photos from much higher in the air than a commercial aircraft ever goes - the photos are satellite. So while the content makes for an interesting read and does provide some context for what you see out the window of an airplane, the book is inappropriately titled.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction into reading landforms from the air
Comment: I used to fly alot on commercial flights and bought this to explore further my interest in geography from an aerial perspective. I was instantly disappointed as the photographs, with two exceptions, were high resolution images taken from satellites! That said, I realize that to show the highlights the author draws us towards, the crisp, detailed images he supplied are helpful as learning guides to acquaint our eyes with what to look for by way of patterns and the like. And, the author does mention his use of these orbital images on pages 13-14.
To understand why he took that approach, review the snapshot of the New York/Newark area on page 10. I've seen that view a number of times after leaving LaGuardia, heading south. Contrast that with the exquisite orbital image including the same area on pages 18-19. No comparison! Yet, the view on page 10 is what more of us would tend to see when we have a clear day, good sun angle, with clean, unscratched windows.
Mr. Dicum probably meant for this to be a quick reference, quick start guide for armchair travelers to whet their appetities. For those wanting to see general landscape views and especially clouds as seen at 30,000 feet, look up the book of the same title by Julieanne Kost. Keep in mind this latter work supplies little geographical interpretation. But, it is the real thing!
There is a dearth of works up to the claim of featuring aerial perspectives representative of the oblique views a passenger of commercial flights flying at 30,000 feet would see. The ones worth their salt, such as America from 500 Feet (Fortney & Fortney) and High Above the Canadian Rockies (Heinl) are outstanding, yet they capture tight, low altitude views more along the lines of that seen from a helicopter flight or a private plane. It may be that more people prefer close up shots rather than a spectacular wide angle view yielding slight detail.
I'm surprised that previous reviewers, privy to the experience of peering out from aerial perspectives and disappointed at the substance of this work by Dicum, didn't share with amazon shoppers the best, readily available resource for assisting in identifying many landforms and objects as seen from aerial perspectives. Go to your local commuter airport (which the small, private planes utilize) and purchase the respective sectional aeronautical charts for the geographical areas you'll be flying over. The 1:500,000 scale is excellent for assisting you in deciphering where you are. There are 37 of these that cover the lower 48 states. These show power line swaths, tall structures of note like smokestacks, and airport runway configurations, the latter a real help in pinpointing where you are at a given moment. Caveat: be somewhat discreet in your airborne use of these lest some overimaginiative passengers draw sinister motives to your benign interest in the landforms below.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Helps flights go faster.....
Comment: I'm not going to touch on the aerial/satellite issue, as that's already been covered. It is a clever idea for a book, educational and fun, and when flying over major land formations like the Grand Canyon, it is useful. Since our snacks, movies, free drinks, etc have been taken away, looking out the window is just about the best entertainment left on a plane, and this book helps take advantage of that.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stolen from another author
Comment: Window Seat was stolen from a series of books entitled Window Seat published in Singapore in 2002. Everything: from the idea, the content, the design, the colouring and even down to the blurb on the back cover: was ripped off wholesale from the original Window Seat series, published in Singapore two years prior to the publication of this book. Gregory Dicum is a [...] and a thief.
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| Editorial Reviews: |
Talk about a fresh perspective! Perched 35,000 feet in the air, Window Seat decodes the sights to be seen on any flight across North America. Broken down by region, this unusual guide features 70 aerial photographs; a fold-out map of North America showing major flight paths; profiles of each region covering its landforms, waterways, and cities; tips on spotting major sights, such as the Northern Lights, the Grand Canyon, and Disney World; tips on spotting not-so-major sights such as prisons, mines, and Interstates; and straightforward, friendly text on cloud shapes, weather patterns, the continent's history, and more. A terrific book for kids, frequent flyers, and armchair travelers alike, Window Seat is packed with curious facts and colorful illustration, proving that flying doesn't have to be a snooze. When it's possible to "read" the landscape from above, a whole world unfolds at your feet.
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