Time Management for Architects and Designers

Book Description

Help in handling a common problem in architectural education and practice: getting the job done on time. This book addresses the special time management issues that confront designers. It offers students and professionals guidance in recognizing and understanding these problems and developing effective strategies for overcoming them. Illustrated with lighthearted drawings, it includes exercises aimed at exploring each designer's personal situation and reinforcing good practice. 120 line drawings.

Customer Reviews:

Must read for design students and professionals.......2004-03-09

An extremely lucid and entertaining manual on a subject that can be tedious. Humorously illustrated by the author, it includes a good summary of pitfalls in the design process. This book can go a long towards meeting design deadlines, while still having a life outside the design studio.

Time management for architects and designers : challenges and remedies /..

Average customer rating:

Time management for architects and designers : challenges and remedies /..
Thorbjoern Mann
Manufacturer: W.W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H629YW

Book Description

Some of the best-known modern painters in the American Northwest, the artists Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson have been called the leaders of a "Northwest School" since the 1940s. But a detailed investigation of their interactions from 1930 to 1954 shows the perception of these four artists as a cohesive group to be a myth. Northwest Mythologies offers a new analysis of their interactions and accomplishments, and places their art and ideologies in the larger context of American modernism.

Although the four artists exchanged ideas and shared common interests, they were close friends and colleagues for only a few years around the time of World War II. Each experimented with stylistic elements admired in the others' painting, yet they produced distinctive, widely ranging bodies of work over their long careers. What fundamentally united these artists was their philosophical approach to artmaking, one that rested on humanism and their passionate belief in art as a moral pursuit.

Constructing a chronology from letters, interviews, and new analyses of their works, Northwest Mythologies reexamines the careers and complex friendships of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson, and explores their different understandings of what it meant to be an artist. This book is the first study of the four painters to finely articulate their differences and achievements, and it presents a new view of their place in American art.

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This is REAL Hip Hop!!!!!

Terrific book

Fabulous resource

dont sleep get it while you can

IS MARTHA COOPER THE ORGINAL QUEEN OF HIP HOP?

Hip Hop Files: Photographs, 1979-1984
Akim Walta , Zephyr , Charlie Ahearn , FABEL , and Patti Astor
Manufacturer: From Here to Fame
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Photo Essays | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Portraits | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Rap | Musical Genres | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Back In The Days

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Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

We B*Girlz

ASIN: 3937946004

Book Description

Hip hop culture emerged from an environment of extreme deprivation and decay in the South Bronx, New York City. The concept of pure invention-of creating something from nothing-was in full effect at the end of the 1970s as graffiti ("borrowed" spray paint), breaking (cardboard as dance floor), and outdoor jams (electricity source: the base of street lights) captured the attention of urban youth, coalescing into new forms of artistic expression. Fortunately, photographer Martha Cooper was at the right place at the right time to document the people that created the music, dance, and art that became known worldwide. Cooper followed people who would one day become icons: the Rock Steady Crew, Fab 5 Freddy, DURO and DONDI, LADY PINK, and Afrika Bambaataa, to name a few. Now, Martha Cooper has the reputation of being the first and foremost photographer of hip hop culture in New York City. While the publication of Cooper's photographs in the early 80s disseminated the culture both at home and abroad, her new book, Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984, makes a significant part of her extensive and unique archive accessible for the first time. From 1999 to 2003, the German hip hop head and music publisher Akim Walta tracked down the subjects in Cooper's legendary shots and conducted numerous interviews obtaining insightful quotes and statements to accompany and add voices to the photographs. Other members of the early hip hop scene, including ZEPHYR, Charlie Ahearn, FABEL, and Patti Astor, contribute text and essays, adding fresh data to the growing body of hip hop history. "Marty's pictures capture the exact moment when hip hop traveled from the Bronx uptown, downtown to the Manhattan nightclub and gallery scene. The photos and movies were suddenly in the works and (through her pictures) "discovered" by the press and then seen by the rest of the world." (Charlie Ahearn)

Customer Reviews:

This is REAL Hip Hop!!!!!.......2005-11-29

Being from this era,this book brings back a ton of great memories.The photos in this book are amazing,so crisp and vibrant.It doesn't seem like it was 2o+ years ago.This book will explain to you what is REAL HIP HOP(MCing,Breaking,Graffit},NOT the garbage they consider Hip Hop today.Looking at these photos it's hard to believe how young we were.Seeing old friends and classmates put a big smile on my face knowing that WE were there when it all started!GREAT book Marty!!!!!!

Terrific book.......2005-10-10

I loved this book! The photographs are powerful, and you can't find anything even close to their documentary quality anywhere else. The text is also interesting and includes quotes from a variety of people--the author, the hip hop performers themselves, and other scholars.

Fabulous resource.......2005-08-12

I lived in NYC in the 70's and 80's and witnessed the rise of subway graffiti and the beginnings of break dancing. This book brings it all back -- in a GOOD way. Reading it, you can understand why poor urban kids went to such lengths to make a mark for themselves. No one cared at first but Martha Cooper, who earned their respect and documented their achievements with her fine photographs. This book is a monument to those unsung teenage artists and the photographer who recognized and publicized their talents.

dont sleep get it while you can.......2005-03-15

i got this book not long ago,i have alot of graff and hip hop books and this is one of the best.it never drags on for to long on one subject.it has basically put like ten graff and hip hop books into one then they took out the bull###t and left us with one dope book.highly recomemened..

IS MARTHA COOPER THE ORGINAL QUEEN OF HIP HOP?.......2005-02-08

Indeed, the handsome Book "the Hip-Hop Files: Photographs, 1979-1984" by Martha Cooper serves as a an open and closed door to what seemed a trend to many documentarians during the late 70's and early 80's. It isn't no coinsidence that Coopers photographs document Graffiti art during a period when the NY Art World was exploiting Urban aerosal artists. It is also very clear that she stopped documenting Graffiti when the "trend" ended in 1985. Though Coopers work documents a moment in time when aerosal art was King and Hip Hop was not yet a corporate advertisement, she does come off as an outsider/tourist when asked about documenting Graffiti, "I'm sure wildlife photographers feel the same way" about photographing animals when they run around. There is also the claim, by her publisher and graff-artists that she was the first photographer to document the origins of Hip-Hop. Jamell Shabazz's book "Back in The Days" never made such a claim nor did it need the fanfare that Coopers book fabricated. Jamell Shabazz,like Debra willis, Martin Chambi and James VanDerZee, documented a personal life and environment in New York before and after the trend came and went. Something to keep in mind!

Book Description

Advance Praise for Our Brother's Keeper

"Beautifully written and extraordinarily poignant, Our Brother's Keeper is a Vietnam book like none other. The ghosts of Vietnam are finally starting to circle home, and this remarkable writer has given them voice with passion and resonance. I love Jedwin Smith's Fatal Treasure; Our Brother's Keeper is even closer to the heart."
— Jeff Long, New York Times bestselling author of The Descent and The Reckoning

"Our experience in Vietnam has been searingly recorded in both fiction and nonfiction, but no book about those years is quite like this one. Jedwin Smith's Our Brother's Keeper tells the story of one family that has lived with death by remembrance, and of a man who found redemption when he wanted revenge. It will break your heart, but change it, too."
— Michael Skube, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in criticism

"I read Our Brother's Keeper in the span of an evening and found it deeply affecting and totally enthralling. This book is a haunting, gut-wrenching, and ultimately redemptive journey through time and the human heart. Magnificent."
—Jack Kerley, author of The Hundredth Man

Customer Reviews:

Excellent and unique look into the effects of the Vietnam War.......2005-08-28

I am a military history buff. I especially love to read books written by people who were there, or in this case a person who was greatly effected by the events described. I picked this book up on a whim from a book store and the writing style dragged me into the story. It is truly unique in that it is written by the brother of a Marine that died in Vietnam and that it really does not focus too much on the war. It does cover the basics of that era, but more focuses on the effects the war had back home, as well as the lasting effects on his family.

I am glad that Mr. Smith finally found a start to his healing and was able to write this book to share with the public.

Our Brother'sKeeper: My Family's Journey through Vietnam to .......2005-06-16

About six weeks ago I was told I HAD to read this book for a book club that I am in. I am a romance/mystery junkie and put off reading what I felt would be a depressing WAR book...How wrong was I? This book, which reads like a great story instead of nonfiction, was riveting and inspiring with as much to say about family and interpersonal relations as it does about the Vietnam war. I laughed at Mr. Smith's memories of a very human warrior as well as cried at the manifestations of sorrow and guilt. I am a 31 year old woman who is as far removed from this war as one can get and yet the book brought home the personal and very unpolitical side of this very confusing part of our history. I was extremely thankful that Mr. Smith could share his experiences with me.

Vietnam: One family's war.......2005-05-13

Jedwin Smith (no relation, but I was once his boss at the Atlanta newspaper where we both worked) has written a spellbinding account of how his brother's death in Vietnam (remember that war?) impacted his family and fueled his own decline into alcohol and depression. Without bitterness or animosity, he relates the unraveling of his family and eventually tells of how he and his siblings came to cope with their brother's death, and to mend their lives and relationships with each other. Part and parcel of the story is his climb from the depths, aided by Vietnam War vets who knew his brother in the field and as always, by the love and strength of his devoted wife, June. Don't think of this as a "war" book. It's not. Rather, this is the story of human relationships, told with insight won the hard way, that will send you to Vietnam War Web sites/books to knock the dust off your memories of that era. Jedwin's a natural-born storyteller and this book will grab you from the first page.

Gut-wrenching yet remarkable book.......2005-04-17

This is the kind of well-written book you'll read in 24 hours but think about for weeks. Its the gut-wrenching story of a family suffering through the loss of a beloved son/brother to the Vietnam War. The author, Jedwin Smith, gives us a rare insight into the long-term effects a family endures and also allows us to go along on his painful and emotional journey toward some sense of healing. Without disclosing elements of the book, be advised there is a reconciliation late in the book that is unique, remarkable and inspirational.
We must never forget the sacrifices veterans made for our country, but this book also reminds us to never forget the sacrifices the families of these veterans made as well.

Book Description

The rules of the game are changing. The explosion of listings available on the Internet, the widespread consolidation of brokerages, and the encroachment of lenders and insurance companies into the front end of the real estate transaction are only a few of the manifestations of a new era in real estate.

To stay ahead of your many competitors, you need a new strategy. You must know how to think content, mine your bits, sell the experience instead of the product, feed the OODA loop, and much more. The Eight New Rules of Real Estate can bring you to the forefront of your profession and keep you there well into the 21st century!

Customer Reviews:

Textbook of mindless gobbeldygook.......2003-09-20

John Tuccillo makes it painfully clear that he has a Ph.D. in economics through this book. It reads like a textbook, and contains about as many relevent facts. He endlessy cites economic figures and studies, then continuously asserts that realtors need to change their business model, rarely giving specific advice - except for the moronic suggestion to sell your clients' financial information as a way to produce income (never mind your fiduciary resposibility, I guess). Don't waste your time with this one.

NOT for the young & lively!.......2001-06-19

After reading [a very different] lively book with real-life stories, I found this book to be dry & slow-reading.

It would appear that Mr. Tuccillo has written this book to try and impress his aging peers--those 49 years+ whom says mostly comprise this industry, those who may be intimidated by our technological age. He throws around brand names, terms & cliches: Netscape, Microsoft, Ecommerce and "content providers"--to lead the non-tech savvy to believe that he may know something about technology (yet, he states that "no company can establish a brand through the Internet." p138). He then goes on to bore you with how technology should be applied to a people-oriented business.

I ran [and sold] a successful Internet technology business, and it expanded not just from our technological savvy, but from our people-centric approach--we grew largely by referral of satisfied clients. They were not just satisfied with our product, but with our PERSONAL service. (We answered our phone on weekends.)

Mr. Tuccillo DISCOURAGES ENTREPRENEURS with his graphs of corporate mergers and acquisitions of Real Estate agencies by the major multinationals: "The real estate industry is aging. Entrepreneur founders of many firms are often looking for an exit strategy..."

I ask the enthusiastic new agent: Is there any hope for YOUR future in this career--especially if you are just starting out now? This book won't have you feeling that way. I recommend Bob Boog's book (Selling Homes 1-2-3) for the livelier optimistic types--the new talent that Mr. Tuccillo says is not coming in anymore. ...Well, certainly not if they read his book first!!

I think that this author is ready for an exit strategy--leaving this "face-to-face people-intensive" business (which he no longer believes it is) to us newcomers & "middlemen"...those whom he says the Internet is causing to "disappear."

P.S. After impressing upon you that you must play by his "Eight New Rules," he ends the entire book with: "Playing by the new rules may well shorten your odds."

Must read for surviving/thriving in real estate.......2000-01-28

Simply, "on target", unbiased, straight forward, clear and absolutely compelling. The real estate industry has been experiencing massive change over the past couple of years. And yet, most real estate professionals (60%+) have remained on the sidelines - waiting to see how these changes will impact there small business. "We do business differently here", "this market is different", "I don't need that stuff", "I'll wait to see what my compeition does first", etc, etc; If you have heard yourself saying these or similar things and you are not heeding the messages Tuccillo sets forth in this book, then you either don't have a business plan or your business plan is about to expire. Some will remain in denial and some will recognize the opportunity and take action. The question every agent and broker needs to ask themselves is whether they are willing to let their competition "get there first". Unless you are considering an exit strategy in the very near term, read John Tuccillo's book, then answer that question.

Insightful, instructional, a great primer for todays market........1999-11-07

Tuccillo accomplishes two things: defines the changing real estate market and exposes the strategies being adopted by the most successful enterprises. The strategies are simple to understand and are applicable to real estate enterprises both large and small.

The character of tomorrow's successful real estate entrepreneur will be more the combination of a people person and an operations manager, than the simple broker that puts the deals together. An operations manager? You might ask. Yes, tomorrow's entrepreneur, in real estate or otherwise, will be treading through a fast moving stream of changes that constantly threaten the status quo. To be successful, and to remain successful, the entrepreneur will have to implement a system that monitors that stream, differentiates his service and locks in his clientele. That system will be multi-layered with clearly and distinctively separate tasks, the results of which will be put together towards a common goal: to add value to your service in a unique way that the most powerful consumer in history will want it because he either can't get it anywhere else, or it satisfies a need that is greater than the cost to have you satisfy it. The explanation of that is what this book is all about.

What Tucillo writes about is clearly visible in today's market. His message is clear and concise, but with enough depth that you can envision his message. If you are in the real estate business, it's a must read. If you are in any other business, you will find that much of it applies to you also.

Get it, read it, and get moving, or we will wave at you as we pass you by.

A must read if real estate is your profession beyond 2000.......1999-11-01

Awesome book. John has the ability to deliver a strong and substantiated message to the Realtor community on survival and success in the new real estate world. Humanistic as well as hard hitting, Realtors, brokers and affiliates will prosper from absorbing the content. Worth reading at least twice!

8 NEW RULES OF REAL ESTATE: DOING BUSINESS IN A CONSUMER CENTRIC, TECHNO SAVVY WORLD.

Average customer rating:

8 NEW RULES OF REAL ESTATE: DOING BUSINESS IN A CONSUMER CENTRIC, TECHNO SAVVY WORLD.
John. Tuccillo
Manufacturer: Real Estate Education Company,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RITD58

Average customer rating:
When Parents Ask for Help: Everyday Issues through an Asset-Building Lens
Renie Howard
Manufacturer: Search Institute Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Parenting | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
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131 Creative Strategies for Reaching Children With Anger Problems

Parenting at the Speed of Teens: Positive Tips on Everyday Issues

35 Ways to Help a Grieving Child (Guidebook Series)

How to Handle a Hard-To-Handle Kid: A Parent's Guide to Understanding and Changing Problem Behaviors

See My Pain! Creative Strategies and Activities for Helping Young People Who Self-Injure

ASIN: 1574824295

Book Description

With reproducible articles that speak directly to parents and caregivers about the dilemmas adolescents face, this collection reframes issues from an asset-based point of view to give parents plenty of encouragement, hope, and practical ideas.

Customer Reviews:

Another Good Book about Cold War Plans.......2004-09-18

This book is a must for anyone interested in Cold War nuclear planning. For me the best part was the Prime Minister's hand written instructions to the submarine ballistic missile forces. Anyone who has read "Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier", "War Plan UK" by Duncan Campbell and "The Doomsday Scenario" by Douglas Keeney will enjoy this book.

The Secret State : Whitehall and the Cold War

Average customer rating:

The Secret State : Whitehall and the Cold War
Peter Hennessy
Manufacturer: Penguin Global
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJDXTC

Book Description

Over the last fifty years few historians have made such an outstanding contribution to the study of eighteenth-century Europe as Norman Hampson. He has written many books and numerous articles dealing with the Enlightenment and Revolutionary France, while teaching at the Universities of Manchester, Newcastle and York. Through his writing and teaching, not to mention his role in the Society for the Study of French History for which he was the founding President, he has exerted a profound influence over a generation of scholars. It is to celebrate these lasting achievements that Enlightenment and Revolution has been assembled.

Taking a broad cultural and intellectual approach, this collection of essays contains contributions by fellow scholars of eighteenth-century Europe, who write on topics relating to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and who have known him as colleague, supervisor or friend. Covering such seemingly diverse subjects as science and army reform, French interest in China, Atlantic slavery and the links between Voltaire and Hume, and prefaced by an appraisal of the man as well as the historian, these essays are linked by themes and approaches that bear the hallmark of Norman Hampson's influence. However, Enlightenment and Revolution is not simply an appreciation of his work; the essays explore new themes in the history of the period and re-examine some of the more familiar aspects of Enlightenment and Revolution. As such, they provide a fitting tribute to the spirit and writings of Norman Hampson.

Average customer rating:

Very entertaining, even for non-birders

The Big Year

how John LeCarre would write a book on competitive birding

The ultimate birding story

Entertaining Book. Easy to Read.

The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession
Mark Obmascik
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
Nature Writing | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
General | Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
Reference | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder

To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifetime Obsession

The Feather Quest: A North American Birder's Year

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The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

ASIN: 0743245466

Book Description

Every January 1, a quirky crowd storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year -- a grand, expensive, and occasionally vicious 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would become a grueling battle for a new North American birding record. Bouncing from coast to coast on frenetic pilgrimages for once-in-a-lifetime rarities, they brave broiling deserts, bug-infested swamps, and some of the lumpiest motel mattresses known to man. This unprecedented year of beat-the-clock adventures ultimately leads one man to a record so gigantic that it is unlikely ever to be bested. Here, prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik creates a dazzling, fun narrative of the 275,000-mile odyssey of these three obsessives as they fight to win the greatest -- or maybe worst -- birding contest of all time.

Customer Reviews:

Very entertaining, even for non-birders.......2007-07-29

This book is an absolute must for birders who like to read about birders. Three totally different birders are depicted in such a clever way that they may start serving as prototypes for any birder you'll meet on birding travels later on.
This may all relate to obsessive birders (both the ones who are described as the readers themselves, like me) but also for non-birders (or less obsessive birders) the story is entertaining enough, as a sort of psychological thriller.
If you like it, then also read Kenn Kaufman's Kingbird Highway.

The Big Year.......2007-07-21

My book club and I enjoyed the book very much . It opened up a whole new world to us that none of us realized existed. The author used a very interesting way to educate us about "birders". We enjoyed the suspense, humor and facts that the author gave us while writing the story.

how John LeCarre would write a book on competitive birding.......2007-06-29

This book came to me as a birthday gift. I am only a casual backyard bird-watcher, so the idea of competitive birding seemed strange, like competitive...star-gazing. It's difficult to express how quickly and deeply I became fascinated with this story; that happened after only a few pages. One of the many things I love about this book is how skilfully and sympathetically Mr. Obmascik portrays the characters. They come accross as very real people caught up in an obsession that most of us are totally unaware of. Unlike the vast hordes who express their passions by sitting in front of a TV watching over-paid ball-handlers, these incredible people follow their interests by first attaining a vast knowledge base of bird habits, songs, and identifying marks. Then they head out into the forests, deserts, mountains, beaches, and waterways in all weather conditions to find fulfillment in the careful sighting of a bird. Although I have no interest in competitive birding, I came to very much admire and respect the people who engage in it. Their determination and single-mindedness reminded me of the land exlorers of a century ago. And much like many of those explorers these folks have a strong sense of honor and fair play, something rarely seen in the "stars" of our popular culture. I have not yet mentioned the aspect that pervades this book: the head-shaking, laugh-out-loud humor that kept a smile on my face for most of the book. Mark Obmascik develops a most enjoyable tone of drama and suspense as he recounts this year in the life of three intrepid birders. Although I have a busy life of work and typical home duties, I finished this book in over several days. I find myself telling everyone about it.

The ultimate birding story .......2007-06-10

_The Big Year_ by Mark Obmascik was a fun and engaging look at the world of bird watching (or birding). More specifically, it was a look at a particular event in the world of birding, a spectacular competitive event called a Big Year, an event in which participants try to see the most species they can in North America north of Mexico during one calendar year. In 1998, three men battled for a new North American birding record and _The Big Year_ chronicles their struggle.

A Big Year is a very interesting competition with as the author put it "few rules and no referees." Birders simply fly, drive, or boat all over the country and try to see the most number of species in a year. Though they often try to photograph the birds they see and often have witnesses with them, they usually just jot down in their notebooks when and where they saw a particular species, forward their totals to the American Birding Association, and hope that their competitors and the birding world believe them. Much of the competition is built upon credibility and honor and once someone is suspected of cheating just one time that person is finished, though cheating or accusations of cheating are quite rare. Indeed, so strangely honor-bound are the participants that Obmascik recounted several times when the three competitors actually helped one another, alerting each other to rare bird sightings in various parts of the continent and even in some cases showing their competitor the bird in person.

Obmascik profiled the three birders who competed that year, interviewing them and visiting the places that they birded in order to win the competition. Each individual had a different starting point to begin their Big Year, had different networks of informants to tell them when rare birds showed up in various parts of the country (accidental strays from other parts of the world, be it Asian birds in Alaska, Mexican birds in Texas and the American Southwest, or Caribbean birds in Florida), and had varying types of experience to bring to bear on the competition.

The three Big Year men were Sandy Komito (a New Jersey industrial contractor, to many a rather unlikely birder), Greg Miller (a nuclear power worker in Maryland who birded deeply in debt and greatly surprised the other two birders who had much greater resources; also the only one of the three to do a Big Year and still work a full-time job), and Al Levantin (a semi-retired corporate chief executive who lived in Colorado). The author followed their progress throughout the year and discussed their lives and what had brought them into birding in general and to competing in the Big Year in particular.

Obmascik discussed the history of the Big Year, covering Roger Tory Peterson's revolutionary 1934 book _A Field Guide to the Birds_ and the author's later famous book, _Wild America_, published in 1955, a book in which the author traveled the continent and noted in a footnote that he saw 572 species in his travels in 1953. This inspired a man by the name of Stuart Keith to repeat the feat in 1956, who reported in _Audubon_ magazine that he had seen 598 birds in a year and that his life-list (birds he had seen his entire life) of 625 was second only to Peterson's reported list of 633. Within weeks of his 1961 article it became clear that Keith was in fact ten among overall life-listers, the champion having seen 669 birds. In 1973 Kenn Kaufman, hitchhiking and spending only $1000, traveled 69,200 miles and saw 666 species, not winning the contest but writing a well-known book called _Kingbird Highway_ and inspiring others, including in 1979 James M. Vardaman, a timber consultant who while not an expert birder hired guides and consultants with his vast financial resources to help him plan a Big Year (the complete opposite of Kaufman), ending the year with 699 species and having spent $44,507 (and writing an influential book, _Call Collect, Ask for Birdman_) and setting the stage for more formal networks to be set up to report rare birds.

My favorite part of the book was the description of the places the three went to and the birds they saw. They went to Attu, "the Holy Grail of serious birders", a "treeless Alaskan spit seventeen hundred miles from Anchorage but just two hundred miles from Russia" to see rare Asian migrants pushed eastward by the region's harsh storms. A vital stop was the Brownsville, Texas Municipal Landfill, the only reliable place in the U.S. to see the Tamaulipas crow (the site nearly as hostile as Attu in its own way). To check off the rare Baird's sparrow, a secretive bird of native-grass prairie that breeds only in the Northern Great Plains, they had to make a special trip; "[a]mong birders, the Baird's separates the men from the boys." High Island, Texas was another vital stop, a prominent birding spot along the Gulf coast, "a green oasis that can be seen for miles offshore," such a popular spot to see arriving spring migrants like hummingbirds, warblers, and tanagers that the Houston Audubon society had built bleachers. To add Pacific pelagic birds, the Big Year men had to contend with the highly influential Debi Shearwater (formerly Debi Milllichap, who had legally changed her name in honor of a type of seabird), who ran the best pelagic birding charter on the West Coast; if one wanted to see Pacific seabirds, one had to be on her good side (and one of the Big Year men wasn't). In order to see the Colima warbler, one had to hike to its only breeding area in the U.S., the 5,900 foot high Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park in Texas. The only place to see otherwise tropical seabirds like the sooty tern and the masked booby was the isolated, desolate Dry Tortugas, arid islands that were once a prison in the Gulf of Mexico.

Entertaining Book. Easy to Read........2007-05-28

I was given this book for helping someone move, and had no idea what it was about until I started reading it. I'm not a birder nor do I know any, but this book was very easy to read. You don't need to know about birds to enjoy this entertaining book, as it is the pursuit of the birds by three competitors -- each trying to break a record -- that is important and makes it fun to read.

If you have a friend that is into birding -- meaning, someone who keeps life lists of birds (and, I wouldn't have known what that meant before reading this book) -- then this book is highly recommended and would make a great gift. Even if you are not into birding and are looking for something different to read, you can't go wrong with "The Big Year".

The Big Year - A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession

Average customer rating:

This is not a review, it is info from the back cover:

The Big Year - A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession

Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0965901343

Customer Reviews:

This is not a review, it is info from the back cover:.......2005-01-04

"Red-breasted nuthatches! Himalayan snowcocks! Spotted woodpeckers! Nutting's flycatchers! The Big Year is the Gumball Rally of birding - a rollicking, nonstop, transcontinental adventure. Mark Obmascik brings the doggedness of an investigative reporter, the grace of an accomplished storyteller, and thh compassion of a fellow-traveling obsessive to this alluring quest for avian supremacy." (Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players.)

"Mark Obmascik understands birders, and in this book he has ventured bravely into the fringes of the hobby to report on a sort of extreme birding; the big year. It's the best and the worst of birding in one grueling yearlong contest, and you have to admire the rare passion and dedication that a big year attempt requires. The rest of us must be content with daydreaming about it, and this book will undoubtedly be the source of many daydreams." (David Allen Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds.)

Average customer rating:

The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession
Mark Obmascik
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NUGZMY

The Big Year : A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession (Random House Large Print)

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The Big Year : A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession (Random House Large Print)
Mark Obmascik
Manufacturer: Random House Large Print
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OXEKQ8

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