Most of us have at least one book lover on our holiday shopping lists. This year, get creative and think beyond bestsellers. The following titles were chosen because of their local ties -- the ties that bind us to home, the place everyone wants to be for the holidays.
Native Trees for North American Landscapes: From the Atlantic to the Rockies
By Guy Sternberg and James W. Wilson
I first heard of Guy Sternberg years ago, when a friend who works with his wife
kept talking about his property near Petersburg where he had planted hundreds
of trees. His labors blossomed over the years into the Starhill Arboretum. They
continue to find fruition in a beautiful book published this year. As Illinois
Times contributor Ginny Lee wrote in a review of the book on Arbor Day,
Native Trees for North American Landscapes is "a definitive text on American
trees. From palmettos to pawpaws, Fagus grandiflora (American beech)
to Quercus virginiana (live oak), these guys have the subject covered."
Don't let the word "text" frighten you off. This book, though scholarly, will
grace any coffee table. Sternberg is a landscape architect, arborist, tree consultant,
writer, lecturer, and photographer. He was assisted by Jim Wilson, a veteran
horticulturist and formerly a cohost of the Victory Garden television
series.
Illinois Wildflowers
By Don Kurz
Artist Georgia O'Keefe said, "Nobody sees a flower really, it is so small, we
haven't time -- and to see takes time." Don Kurz, apparently, had the time. He
shares O'Keefe's artistic eye, but whereasher medium was paint, his
is film. I was hooked by the cover's showy purple coneflower, just the first
of more than 400 stunning photographs of flowers native to the Prairie State.
Not only does Kurz see his flowers, he captures them for us in ways that make
us see them anew. His passionflower reminded me of a Native American Indian
clad in his best ceremonial costume. His common forget-me not? Uncommon -- and
unforgettable. Most of us, in describing a flower we've seen will begin with
a description of its color and when we saw it, so I appreciated the way in which
the book is organized by color and season. All of the scientific information
is here as well. Kurz holds masters' degrees in botany and zoology from Southern
Illinois University in Carbondale and has been working in the wild for more
than 30 years.
Birds of Illinois
By Sheryl DeVore, Steven D. Bailey, and Gregory Kennedy
I have a birdbath in my backyard. It took a while, but I can finally tell a
grackle from a crow, a pigeon from a dove. Thanks to Birds of Illinois,
I now know that a pigeon is a kind of dove. Given time, I will be able
to identify a few others winged creatures among the 319 species found, if not
in my backyard, then in my neck of the woods. The advantage of this new guidebook
over, say, a "birds of North America" field guide is that the creatures featured
here are ones you might actually catch a glimpse of. Birds of Illinois is
a little larger than your average Audubon guide, which is helpful for those
of us with aging eyes; the format also makes it possible to showcase the beautiful
paintings that illustrate the text. The soft cover is actually made to be water-resistant,
always a good thing when you're taking to the trails.
Decatur: Images of America
By Dan Guillory
One hundred years ago, you could get more than a drink of water on Decatur's
Water Street. As Dan Guillory notes in Decatur, a photographic history
of Springfield's neighbor to the east, the thoroughfare afforded rye whiskey
for the thirsty, new soles for those who were down at the heels, and a little
extra cash by way of the pawnbroker. This look at a central Illinois town is
part of the Images of America series published by Arcadia Press. Guillory,
who recently retired after many years as a professor of English at Millikin
University, has taken great care in telling Decatur's story, selecting some
200 archival photographs from many sources. The result is a unique collection
that offers an informative snapshot of an archetypal Midwestern city. For those
with ties to other Illinois towns, a quick glance at the Springfield Barnes
& Noble reveals Arcadia titles for Springfield, Chillicothe, Jacksonville,
Vandalia, and Quincy.
prayer against famine and other irish poems
By John Knoepfle
For quite a while now, the pages of Illinois Times have been graced with
the words of poet John Knoepfle. Readers who long for more will be requited
in his new book, prayer against famine, of which reviewer Theodore Haddin
wrote: "No one who reads the remarkable new poems by John Knoepfle can fail
to be touched by their penetrating strength. If poems from the sangamon (1985)
brought history up out of the Midwest, this one goes back to Knoepfle's place
of Irish ancestry, taking everything American and Irish with him, and us, too.
There are accounts of the lost histories of Knoepfle's mother and great-grandmother,
a tribute to Yeats, some longer meditational poems, reports from the Dublin
streets, trips to nearby ruins and islands. But more than these, Knoepfle's
ancestral journey of loss and discovery has turned to the world's hunger and
suffering as well, a great contribution for which we are extremely thankful."
Wild and Scenic Illinois
Photography by Willard Clay, text by Robert Hutchinson
When the makers of this book began their work, they first asked the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources to suggest the most "wild and scenic areas"
in the state. DNR's answer amounted to "all over." The results are spectacular.
Clay, one of the nation's leading landscape photographers, focuses his lens
lovingly on Illinois, from the Lake Michigan shore to the Shawnee Hills of southern
Illinois. Camera buffs will gain insight from Clay's tips for tackling the technical
challenges of landscape photography. Across regions, seasons, and varied subject
matter, Clay astonishes us with the breadth and variety of our native habitat.
Robert Hutchinson was formerly a research scientist at the American Museum of
Natural History in New York City. His text reminds us that in Illinois, we have
inherited places as scenic and wild as those anywhere in this country.
More Stories from the Round Barn
By Jacqueline Dougan Jackson
I include this book, the only one here without a 2004 copyright, because nothing
will get you in the holiday mood like reading her story "Big House Christmas."
Oh, sure, you can go see Tom Hanks' computer-animated version of The Polar
Express, but if you want real holiday emotion, this is the place
to start. Anyone old enough to remember being given a handkerchief for Christmas
may find himself or herself in need of one in these beautiful vignettes. Jackson's
memoir, a sequel to the popular Stories from the Round Barn, is about
growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm in the first part of the last century.
The stories are nostalgia without the syrup. There was nothing warm and fuzzy
about the flu epidemic of 1918. But in a nation obsessed with "family values,"
one need look no further than to a real family whose members worked and played
together and spawned a writer to tell their stories with skill and panache.
