Given the enormity of the task of identifying 1,001 of the world's greatest wonders, the authors did a pretty good job. But they were clearly biased in their selections. This book was originally published in England. Not coincidentally, 54 pages are devoted solely to the British Isles. This represents about 6% of the book. This may not seem like that much until you consider that the Britsh Isles have about 0.2% of the world's land mass. Likewise, about 170 pages were devoted to Western Europe ... 19% of the book for 2.5% of the world's land mass. Other sections of the book seemed to be given disproportionate coverage as well. 10% of the entire North America section was devoted to New Mexico. The whole of Canada barely got more coverage than this. The enormous country of Russia got just 7 pages. New Zealand - an incredibly scenic country - got just 13 pages. The breathtaking islands in French Polynesia got 2 pages of coverage (and they completely ignored Moorea Island).
All of this being said, this is still a fairly impressive book that can be used to get a general idea of places you might like to visit. It has nearly 1,000 pages, so even with the disproportionate coverage, it still provides a pretty good glimpse at a lot of the natural wonders around the world. And there are some pretty nice photos, though I do wish there was a photo of every place, rather than a photo of about 1 in every 2 or 3 places. Photos can say more about a natural wonder than a couple paragraphs of text. Hopefully, the authors will someday come out with a new edition with more photos and less biased coverage of places throughout the entire world. 1001 Natural Wonders You Must See Before You Die: UNESCO Edition
Bought as a Christmas Gift for our family. The book is printed on high quality glossy photo paper with maybe more than 400 gallery-quality photos of the wonders around the world. Many are truely breathtaking. I was tempted to read it from cover to cover at the begining and it soon proved to be a daunting task to cover the 900+ pages. So I was content to flip from page to page glancing at the photos and occasionally read the descriptions, which are simple and to the point. This is truely a wonderful book to own. I'd keep it close at hand on a coffee table or a bed-side table and once a while pick it up and let myself wander among the wonders.
I love to travel and thus peruse lots of books to explore and plan my future trips. I liked "1000 places to see before you die" as it did decent job in describing places worth visiting in all countries and continents. This book is a very weak copycat.
It seems that the criteria for choosing "natural wonders" was their proximity to US and south US in particularly and/or availability of the pictures. For instance, the book has tons of places in Texas, Arizona, etc. Not that these places are not nice, but the book completely ignores Moorea in Pacific, New Zealand has only marginal coverage and there are only couple of places in the whole India worth mentioning.
The book does have nice pictures, so it would qualify as a coffee table book for people who do not travel further than nearest McDonald yet like to dream or talk about faraway places. But do not take it as a guide for places you must see before you die: you will miss much of the world then!
buy this book! quality book, full of breathtaking photos of incredible places around the world. whether you are a dreamer, traveler or adventure seeker, you will love this book. i purchased it as a gift but am keeping it for myself and ordering another one.
I will admit upfront: I have not read this book, I have only browsed through it for about 25 minutes inside of a bookstore I shall not name out of respect to Amazon. With that being said, there are some amazing pictures in this book. But there is one thing that REALLY bothers me. The picture on the front page is a FAKE! It is not in any way a real iceberg...it is TWO icebergs! The image was created by professional photographer Ralph Clevenger. Here is a quote from Mr. Clevenger converning this fauxtograph:
"I created the image as a way of illustrating the concept of what you get is not necessarily what you see. As a professional photographer I knew that I couldn't get an actual shot of an iceberg the way I envisioned it, so I created the final image by compositing several images I had taken. The two halves of the iceberg are two separate shots, one taken in Alaska and one taken in Antarctica (neither is underwater). The only underwater part is the background taken off the coast of California. The sky is the last component. It took a lot of research on lighting and scale to get the berg to look real."
There you go. This photograph is one part Alaska, one part Antarctica, and one part California. He doesn't mention where he gets the sky from. If I was a betting man I would say somewhere above Liechtenstein.
Now...how can I in good faith pay money for a book about the NATURAL wonders of the world when the first photo I am presented with is a FAKE?? How many other "natural" photographs does this book contain? Honestly I don't know, and don't care to do the research on. Hopefully in the future the author Michael Bright doesn't do a book about instects and animals found around the world. I can only imagine how many fake giant spider pictures THAT book would include.
So there you have it. A book about the "natural" world that has a faked picture on the cover. Way to do some serious research Mr. Bright. You are are superstar.
Some of the world's leading explorers lend their contributions and advice to the extensive travel reference 1001 NATURAL WONDERS YOU MUST SEE BEFORE YOU DIE, which holds very nearly 1,000 pages packed with photos and descriptions of such wonders. From Loch Ness in Scotland to Lake Natron in Tanzania or Daisetsu in Japan, the world's wilderness places are all under one cover, with extensive descriptions charting why they stand out. While some of these places pepper other books, no other coverage is so extensive - or so well laid out, blending modern color photos with cultural and natural insights. Very highly recommended indeed; way above any other 'natural wonders' guides, and perfect for both armchair travelers and travel planners alike. - Travel Guide - Art - Architecture - Travel'
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