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Title: Audubon's Birds Of America (The Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio)
ISBN: 0789208148
Author:
Roger Tory Peterson Institute
Virginia Marie Peterson
Publicate Date: 2005-04-30
Publish: 2005-04-30
List Price: $12.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.73
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $7.45
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.36
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Preposterous. Honestly.
I bought this book as a gift for my parents, who are elderly and who enjoy watching birds and looking at pictures of birds.
But when I later went to visit them I got an unpleasant surprise: this book is HUGE. Ridiculously huge.
It's the biggest book I've ever seen. It's about the size of a computer tower laid on its side. Bigger than any unabridged dictionary.
As a result my parents never use it: it's simply too heavy for them to lift. I'm not joking around here. They're afraid of getting a hernia or hurting their back if they lift it.
So it just sits on the shelf gathering dust.
Actually, not on the shelf, since this book won't fit on any normal bookshelf. So they just stand it on the floor.
If you buy this, make sure the person you're getting it for is in excellent shape.
You've been warned.
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2: Wonderful little books for gifts
This "baby elephant folio" is indeed a tiny but complete book of Audubon's "Birds of America." It is a perfect edition to give as a gift to friends and family who are Audubon aficionados. It is great quality and the price can't be beat; I purchased several.
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3: A Good Companion
Having recently read the biography of Audubon, I was very interested in seeing the actual drawings. The book I read had a few of them in black and white, but I wanted to see a larger sample in color. I decided to see if Amazon had anything and was very surprised to see that they offered all of the original drawings in color for a very small price. I realized the book would be smaller than the original life size drawings, but was a little surprised to find that the book was so small. That is my main problem with the book. Otherwise - WOW. To see these birds in all their glory in full color is just breathtaking. Furthermore, when you consider the original size, to have shrunk them down and still maintain the detail and the beauty is quite impressive. One can appreciate the drawings without having read about Audobon's struggle to create and then publish them, but I would suggest this book as a companion to a good biography of Audobon. Once you have both, his accomplishment can be fully appreciated.
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4: Spectacular
This book is spectacular. The images are breathtaking, and the quality of their presentation is nothing short of superb. Wow!!!
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5: Why reorganize a symphony?
Let me qualify my remarks by first saying that I have not even seen this version. I have no doubt that the printing is of the highest quality, but I have a serious reservation about the organization of this book. Audubon deliberately mixed his birds in a non-taxonomic order to maintain a freshness and an element of suprise. I recently acquired a large format copy published by Welcome Rain, which follows Audubon's original order. The effect is a delightful romp through nature, full of suprises, drama and movement. He never intended it to be a catalog with all his ducks in a row, it was to be an experience. I have seen an abridged, small format edition of his paintings arranged in the standard, dull taxonomic order of a typical field guide and the effect is nothing like seeing them in the order Audubon intended. Rearranging the plates for convenience of listers diminishes this work, and to a certain extent, is a disservice to the artist. While I am happy to see that his work remains in print and is being reproduced at very high standards, I would hope that it would be viewed as a symphony, not as a random collection of notes needing to be organized alphabetically.
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