Photography – Schizanthus Nerd

Graveyards – Alastair Horne

I love fun facts and photography, although sometimes it can be difficult to find enough favourites to include in a review. I had the opposite problem here so, even though I’ve tried to restrain myself, I’ve included more than I usually would.

Because Back to the Future is never too far from my mind, I need to tell you that the Cave Hill Cemetery clock tower in Louisville, Kentucky has been struck by lightning a number of times.

At Boston’s Granary Burying Ground in 2009 “an abandoned entrance to an unmarked crypt was rediscovered when the ground gave way beneath a visitor, plunging her into a hidden stairwell.”

One of my favourite photos was of Kilmacduagh Monastery in Galway, Ireland.

A partly ruined ninth-century building at Mizdarkhan in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan is known as the Apocalypse Clock. It is believed that “when the final brick falls, it will herald the end of the world.”

I love graves that showcase the personality or interests of the person buried there, so absolutely adore the piano in London’s Highgate Cemetery.

Off the coast of Madagascar, pirates are buried at Île Sainte Marie. Naturally their gravestones are marked with skulls and crossbones.

The Kankanaey people of Sagada suspend the coffins of their most distinguished elders from the cliffs. Traditionally, the elderly make their own coffins and paint their names on the side; the bodies are placed in a foetal position, mimicking their entry into life.

The Hanging Coffins of Sagada — *Image credit: Florian Blümm*

There was a focus on cemeteries in Europe and the Americas. Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific combined had under 50 pages dedicated to them, whereas Europe and the Americas had 170. There were less photos that looked like a haunting had been interrupted than I had hoped but the abundance of memorable fun facts made up for it.

NB: Images are taken from the eARC so the colours may not be an accurate representation of the photos in the book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Amber Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Graveyards, burial sites and cemeteries are as old as human civilisation itself, resting places, and memorial sites for loved ones, the great, and sometimes the infamous.

Graveyards reveals both the universality of death, and the diversity of how we commemorate or memorialise those who have passed, from the hanging coffins of Sagada, Philippines, to the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, testament to the huge Jewish community that lived in the Czechoslovak capital before the Holocaust.

With detailed captions explaining their history and often ghostly past, Graveyards is a vivid pictorial exploration of the best-known, most-haunted, and quirkiest burial places in the world today.

9 September, 20249 September, 2024 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 4 stars, Amber Books, Book, Book Review, NetGalley, Photography

Whales & Dolphins – Tom Jackson

My childhood answer to ‘If you could be an animal, what would you be?’ was a dolphin. Every time. I’ve never grown out of my love for them.

It makes my day whenever I get to see a pod of dolphins playing in the waves when I’m walking on the beach. I’ve come to love whales as well and look forward to seeing them migrate up and down the coast.

A photography book featuring whales, dolphins, other toothed whales and porpoises was always going to find me. I enjoyed the fun facts.

The water spout puffed from the blue whale’s nostril-like blowholes rises 10m (32.8ft) above the surface.

I was really here for the photography, though. The photos weren’t as jaw dropping as I’d hoped but I was introduced to a number of species I hadn’t heard of before. I’m currently most interested in meeting a Pacific white-sided dolphin.

Pacific white-sided dolphin — *Photo credit: Louie Lea*

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Amber Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Whales and dolphins alike are renowned for their intelligent nature and fascinating social rituals. Like us humans, they use vocalisations to communicate. They both have distinctive, streamlined body shapes and propel themselves through water using powerful tails and flippers. These magnificent mammals are frequently described as ‘sentinels’ of ocean health, providing key insight into marine dynamics and ecosystem quality. Whales are the largest marine mammals belonging to the Cetacea order (whales, dolphins and porpoises). Their incredible size continues to amaze us, the blue whale reaching an astounding 100ft (30.48 metres) and weighing as much as 200 tons. Dolphins, found in both oceans and freshwater, are actually classed as small-toothed whales. They are esteemed around the world for their sleek physical appearance and intriguing sounds used to communicate with each other. Did you know that porpoises are often shy creatures and therefore most of us will very rarely encounter them in the wild? Among their species is the vaquita, tragically the most endangered species of any whale, dolphin or porpoise. With full captions explaining the different species, behaviour and feeding habits, Whales & Dolphins is a vibrant look at these marine mammals in 180 vivid photographs.

26 April, 2024 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 3.5 stars, Amber Books, Book, Book Review, NetGalley, Photography

Hidden Places – Claudia Martin

I love landscape photography and, as someone who’s never travelled outside of my country, I enjoy imagining all of the places I’ll travel when I stumble across the millions of dollars that have been hiding from me.

This book takes you around the world in 180 photos, highlighting some lesser known places. My travel bucket list has grown extensively as a result.

There’s the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto, Canada, with over 15 million items!

As someone who collects sea glass, I need to see Glass Beach in California. There are colours there I don’t have in my collection.

I definitely need to learn how to abseil so I can see the ‘heavenly light’ above the sinkhole in Jomblang Cave in Indonesia.

I want to wander around the Maol-bhuidhe bothy in Scotland and see Cueva de los Verdes, a network of lava tubes, in Lanzarote, Spain. I need to explore the island of Porto Santo in Madeira, Portugal.

Teufelsbrücke (‘Devil’s Bridge) in Rakotzbrücke, Germany fascinates me and I’ve wanted to see the Crooked Forest in Gryfino, Poland for years.

My favourite photo was of Thor’s Well in Oregon, USA.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Amber Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

From the psychedelic salt mines of Yekaterinburg in Siberia to the rugged, green-tinted Copper Canyon in the Sierra Madre in Mexico, Hidden Places roams across the globe in search of hidden treasures and secret places off the beaten track. Explore the Silfra Deep Trench in Iceland, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet to create a remarkable rift and freshwater dive site; experience the weirdest of woodland walks through the Crooked Forest in Pomerania, Poland, where a grove of 400 pines are uniformly curved; marvel at the colourful, gold-plated temple of Doi Suthep in northern Thailand; or visit the world’s highest sand dune, Grande Dune du Pilat, on the Bordeaux coast. Each location is accompanied by a caption explaining the geography and history of the place. Illustrated with 180 colour photographs, Hidden Places ranges from the sparse landscape of the Arctic Circle to the rich rainforests of the Amazon basin. Read this book and discover the special, hidden places that will come to define your bucket list – many of which are much closer to home than you think.

26 April, 2024 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 4 stars, Amber Books, Book, Book Review, NetGalley, Photography

Strange Animals – Tom Jackson

This book combines two of my favourite things, photography and fun facts. Because I’ve devoured so many books with fascinating, adorable and weird animals over the years, there wasn’t a lot of information that was new to me here. It was still an entertaining read, though, and I loved the photos.

It’s always hard to choose my favourite facts. This time around I’ve picked two from each section: Asia, Africa, Australasia, North America, Central & South America, Europe and Oceans. They’re a combination of my favourite animals, photos and facts.

A tarsier’s eye is bigger than its brain.

At around 35cm (14 inches) from snout to tail, the tokay is the world’s largest gecko.

A naked mole-rat queen “controls her workers using chemicals in her urine.”

The African fat-tailed gecko uses the fat stored in its tail when food becomes scarce.

The duck-billed platypus detects electrical currents produced by its prey with its bill.

Echidnas are related to the platypus. “It too lays eggs, and the pointed snout is sensitive to electricity given out by insect prey.”

The thorn bug is a treehopper. “It sits on a twig and jabs its pointed mouthpart into plants.”

The rubber boa ties itself in a knot when it’s threatened.

The pink river dolphin is born grey. When its skin rubs against objects, it becomes pinker.

The axolotl was named after the Aztec god of fire and lightning.

The wisent (European bison) is Europe’s largest wild land animal.

The Atlantic puffin’s diet consists solely of fish.

The Christmas tree worm grows on coral reefs around the world.

The Pacific hagfish have a “spiral of teeth that they twist into corpses to drill out a cylinder of flesh.”

NB: The images I’ve included in my review are screenshots of the eARC. The colours may look different in the book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Amber Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

How does a mudskipper fish manage to “walk” on land? Why is the Hoatzin also known as ‘The Stinkbird’? And once the female Pipa toad has laid her eggs, where does she put them?

The answers? The mudskipper can “walk” using its pectoral fins, the Hoatzin has a unique digestive system which gives the bird a manure-like odour, and the female Pipa Toad embeds its eggs on its back where they develop to adult stage.

Illustrated throughout with outstanding colour photographs, Strange Animals presents the most unusual aspects of 100 of the most unusual species. The selection spans a broad spectrum of wildlife, from the tallest land living mammal, the giraffe, to the light, laughing chorus of Australian kookaburra birds, from the intelligence of the Bottlenose dolphin to octopuses that change colour when they dream to the slow pace of the three-toed sloth.

Arranged geographically, the photographs are accompanied by fascinating captions, which explain the quirky characteristics of each entry. Including egg-laying mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, cannibalistic insects and other invertebrates, Strange Animals is a compelling introduction to some of nature’s most curious beasts.

8 May, 2023 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 4 stars, Amber Books, NetGalley, Photography

The Wild – Claudia Martin

Five countries hold 70 per cent of the world’s last remaining wilderness: Russia, Australia, Brazil, Canada and the United States, much of the last country’s wild land lying in Alaska.

This book’s whirlwind trip around the world was fodder for my travel wish list. Divided into sections by geography – Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania & Antarctica, North & South America – the photography highlights various landscapes across the seasons. The isolation and serenity made this the perfect coffee table book for me.

Although I almost always love photography books, because there are so many to choose from, I like to get a feel for what to expect before deciding if they’re for me or not. With that in mind, I’ve chosen my current favourite photo from each section.

Legend says that dragons throwing rocks at one another created the distinctive landscape of the Drakolimni of Tymfi, found in Vikos-Aoös National Park, Greece.

The combusting sulphur in the Ijen stratovolcano complex in East Java, Indonesia, causes Api Biru, Blue Fire.

African teak is a deciduous hardwood tree with explosive pods able to spread seeds over several metres.

This teak forest is in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

The world’s largest population of dugongs make their home at Shark Bay, Western Australia.

This gorgeous winter scene comes to you from the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska.

While this book features some breathtaking landscapes, it also includes photos of animals. My favourite is this American alligator, a species that can reach 4.8m (15.7 feet) in length, chilling out at Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, USA.

NB: The images I’ve included in my review are screenshots of the eARC. The colours may look different in the book.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Amber Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Illustrated with beautiful colour photographs, The Wild leads the reader to the planet’s least cultivated places, from jungles to tundras. Take a step into the wild!

We live in an increasingly urbanised world, but there are still many magnificent stretches of wilderness unaltered by humankind. From the most remote mountains and valleys in Alaska to the southern tip of Chile and Argentina, from Europe’s primeval forest on the Polish-Belarusian border to Norway’s fjords, and from the Namib Desert to Kamchatka in far-eastern Russia to canyons in Kurdistan and rainforests in Cambodia, The Wild celebrates the beauty of uncultivated landscapes all around the globe.

Arranged by continent, the book roams across landscapes and climates, from Antarctica’s dry valleys to African burning deserts, from European marshlands to Arabian rugged peaks and on to Tanzania’s craters, Indonesia’s volcanoes, and New Zealand’s bubbling mud pools. Each entry is supported with fascinating captions explaining the geology, geography, flora, and fauna. In doing so, the book reveals some of the world’s most naturally bizarre places.

2 April, 2023 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 5 stars, Amber Books, NetGalley, Photography

Contemporary Sand Sculpture – Barbara Purchia & E. Ashley Rooney

During my recent wanderings, I found a duck shaped snowball maker. I bought it for my mother, who loves ducks, despite the fact that if it ever snows where we live it’ll mean there’s something seriously wrong with the weather.

Sans snow, we took this new toy to the beach and proceeded to make some pretty funny duck adjacent lumps of sand. I was especially proud of our best result, which actually looked like a duck (if someone had amputated most of its bill).

Needless to say, if I was to attempt to create a sand sculpture, the result would be abstract at best.

You won’t find the sandcastles from your childhood in this book. These sand sculptures aren’t constructed with a mere bucket and shovel. The tools of this trade can include “bulldozers, pneumatic tampers, generators, cranes, front-end loaders, and huge water pumps to carry water to the top”. Todd Vander Pluym, president of Sand Sculptors International (SSI), has even created a castle that survived a 6.2 earthquake!

Although there are only two ingredients – sand and water – the design possibilities are endless. With imagination and creativity, some engineering and design knowledge, and possession of the right tools, today’s sand artist creates ephemeral, incredible, complex, and “how did they do that with only sand and water” artwork.

My brain stayed on ‘WOW!’ for the entire book so it’s difficult to choose favourites. Currently, I’m obsessed with:

Guy-Olivier Deveau’s Bleeding

David Ducharme and Marielle Heessels’ My Better Half

Matt Long’s SHARK!

Jeff Strong’s Consuming Pastime

I’m sure my favourites will change every time I revisit this book. I need to find a sand sculpture competition so I can see the artists at work.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Schiffer Publishing for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Part performance art and part engineering, sand sculpture has become amazingly sophisticated as artists explore the boundaries of their skill with sand as a medium. Within a very short time, a sculptor can create an awesome, thought-provoking experience that will completely vanish after a few weeks. The photographs are all that’s left. Barbara Purchia and E. Ashley Rooney take you on a round-the-world tour of sandscapes showcasing a dazzling array of sculptural figures, forms, and styles. Behind-the-scenes interviews with the sand masters reveal what motivates them and how they approach their art. Todd Vander Pluym, the world’s premier sand artist and president of Sand Sculptors International (SSI), shares a contemporary history of sand sculpture, and renowned international sculptor Kirk Rademaker describes how he built a new life around this ephemeral medium.The images of these art pieces will have you wanting to stick your toes in the sand!

28 December, 2022 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 5 stars, NetGalley, Photography, Schiffer Publishing

Atlas of Abandoned Places – Oliver Smith

To step into an abandoned place is to cross a kind of threshold into the past – to time travel from the present day to the instant that people departed.

I love abandoned places photography. I enjoy poring over the photos for evidence of the lives of the people who used to inhabit the spaces. There always seems to be a haunted beauty attached to these places, as they gradually erode and nature reclaims them.

I’ve come to expect books about abandoned places to showcase a photographer’s favourite sites. This is the first abandoned places book I’ve read that’s been written by a travel writer. The images are stock photos, which meant I didn’t get get to feel like I was tagging along with someone who may have had to climb fences and find ways to get into buildings undetected. However, it also meant that, rather than the purple prose I’m used to reading in abandoned places books, the information that’s presented here captured my attention just as much as the photography.

Separated into parts by geography – Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, the Middle East and the Caucasus, Asia, Oceania and Africa – this book explores fifty abandoned places, from trains, palaces and a theme park to entire towns. Each four page entry contains photos and a map, along with information about the history, current state and any future plans for the site.

I most want to explore:

The Paris Catacombs, not the 1.6km (1 mile) tourist attraction but the network an area of about 320km (200 miles) that haven’t been entirely mapped yet. I want to see the places that remain undiscovered and unmarked by graffiti.

City Hall Station, New York.

Two hundred policemen were called to hold back the curious crowds, and the Mayor of New York took the controls of the inaugural train. He had so much fun he refused to hand them back to the driver.

Ciudad Perdida (meaning ‘Lost City’), Colombia. You’ll need to hike for four days to get there but the journey sounds as amazing as the destination.

Organized tours see participants traversing rushing rivers on rope bridges, passing waterfalls where hummingbirds dart through the humid air, and sleeping in hammocks listening to the night-time symphony of the forest.

Aniva Lighthouse, at the tip of Sakhalin, Russia. It’s desolate and remote, the perfect place to get lost in a book.

There’s a lot of very interesting information in this book. I’m always on the lookout for fun facts and all things strange and unusual. I found those here too.

For £99, you can buy your very own knighthood. It’s for Sealand, a country that no others recognise, but it’s probably your only chance to be knighted.

Bodie in California is a typo. It’s named after W.S. Bodey, a prospector from New York. If you visit, fair warning: don’t souvenir any trinkets you come across.

‘The Curse of Bodie’ goes that objects stolen from the ghost town have brought tragedy and even death to their new homes. Items are still regularly returned to Bodie in the post, with notes of repentance from sorry thieves.

The grand opening of the Orpheum Theatre in New Bedford, Massachusetts happened the day the Titanic sank.

New York’s “City Hall Station provided the inspiration for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ lair.”

For places that seem lifeless, their lesson is that – in some form or other – life goes on.

Thank you so much to Hachette Australia for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Explore the wonders that the world forgot with award-winning travel writer Oliver Smith – from breathtaking buildings with a dark past to decaying reminders of more troubled times.

The globe is littered with forgotten monuments, their beauty matched only by the secrets of their past.

A glorious palace lies abandoned by a fallen dictator. A grand monument to communism sits forgotten atop a mountain. Two never-launched space shuttles slowly crumble, left to rot in the middle of the desert. Explore these and many more of the world’s lost wonders in this atlas like no other.

With remarkable stories, bespoke maps and stunning photography of fifty forsaken sites, Atlas of Abandoned Places travels the world beneath the surface; the sites with stories to tell, the ones you won’t find in any guidebook.

Award-winning travel writer Oliver Smith is your guide on a long-lost path, shining a light on the places that the world forgot.

11 October, 202212 October, 2022 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 5 stars, Abandoned Places, Hachette, Mitchell Beazley, Octopus Publishing Group, Photography 2 Comments

Cities of the Dead – Yolanda Zappaterra

I inherited my Nan’s fascination for cemeteries. She instilled in me a reverence for the people whose tombstones I was reading. Horror movies gave me my dread/hope that one day I’ll witness a hand rising from a grave or hear some grave bells ringing.

This book introduces you to a selection of beautiful cemeteries from around the world. For some, their beauty lies in their location, overlooking the ocean or surrounded by trees. Some hold unique cultural or historical significance. Many are the final resting place of people who found fame in life.

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Bonaventure (meaning ‘Good Fortune’) Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia

Each entry includes the history of the cemetery and photos that made me want to visit most of them, but there are also tales of the horror of being buried alive and bodysnatching. If you know me, you know I love fun facts. This book has plenty. Some of my favourites are:

🪦 The headstone of Susan B. Anthony is covered with plexiglass around election time because there’s a tradition of people placing their ‘I Voted’ stickers on it.

🪦 The Sophie Calle installation at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York is a “twenty-five-year artwork entitled Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery in which people can write down their thoughts or secrets and place them in a white marble ‘tombstone’.”

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Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York

🪦 During summer, movies screenings are held on the Douglas Fairbanks Lawn at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Movies shown there include Night of the Living Dead.

🪦 Amongst the tombstones in Okunoin Cemetery, Mount Kōya, Japan, you’ll see some more unusual memorials:

a giant termite’s nest that acts as a pest control company’s memorial to all the termites their products have exterminated. Puffer fish that have fallen foul of chefs’ knives, a giant coffee cup, a large space rocket erected by aerospace company ShinMaywa Industries and memorials to the staff of companies such as Nissan, Toyota and Kirin beer all form part of the curious mix.

If you’re superstitious, you may want to avoid this cemetery all together.

Nearby, housed in a small wooden cage near the Gobyobashi Bridge, the equally curious Miroku Stone supposedly weighs one’s sins as you try to lift it from a lower to an upper platform, but more scary is the Sugatami-no-Ido, or Well of Reflections, found just beyond the Nakanohashi Bridge, close to the shrine to the bodhisattva Asekaki Jizo. Legend has it that if you look into this tiny wooden well but don’t see your reflection, you’re fated to die within three years. Probably best to stay on the safe side and avoid it – which might also be good advice for the Zenni Jochi stone memorial to a Buddhist nun of which it is said, if you place your ear you can hear the cries of people in Hell.

Naturally, this is the cemetery I most want to explore.

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Okopowa Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland

I found the section at the end of the book that explored symbolism in cemeteries particularly interesting.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Frances Lincoln, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group, for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Cities of the Dead takes us on a tour of memorial sites, ranging from monastic settlements to grand cathedrals, Shinto shrines to Gothic chapels, tombs and crypts. Enjoy tales of myths and monsters, grave-robbers, pilgrimages, spiritual retreats, remembrance and community. Marvel in cemeteries with a hundred thousand to a handful of graves which feature famous headstones, weeping angels, ocean views, woodlands, thousands of glowing lanterns and a tomb of poets.

From London’s famous Highgate Cemetery, which houses famous names from Karl Marx to Malcolm McLaren, George Eliot to Christina Rosetti, to Hawaii’s breathtaking Valley of the Temples, this book spans the globe to bring you the most fascinating, intriguing and evocative cemeteries across cultures and continents.

Together with evocative images, the stories behind these notable burial sites bring these sanctuaries to life, detailing the features that make them special, highlighting both similarities and differences between time periods, religions and cultures, and showing how cemeteries are about and for the living as much as the dead.

24 September, 2022 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 4 stars, Frances Lincoln, NetGalley, Photography, Quarto Publishing Group

Atlas of Forgotten Places – Travis Elborough

Maps – Martin Brown

I love books that explore abandoned places. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about seeing nature reclaiming these areas. I always feel a tinge of sadness as well, being witness to once majestic places falling into disrepair.

This book’s abandoned places are divided into five sections: vacant properties, unsettled situations, dilapidated destinations, journeys ended and obsolete institutions. The locations, covering most continents (a notable exception is Australia), are varied. They include an orphanage, a nuclear power plant, a lighthouse, palaces, hotels, castles, a theme park, a train graveyard and a submarine base.

The history of the locations are accompanied by maps and photographs. Because I love abandoned places so much, I wanted more photos, particularly those that showed the interiors.

I knew about a number of these places already but some were new to me. The one I’m most likely to remember years from now is Akampene Island, Uganda. Women in traditional Bakiga society who became pregnant out of wedlock were exiled there as punishment. The island only had “two trees that bore no edible fruit and offered nothing in the way of shelter”. Most girls had not been taught to swim and to be marooned there meant almost certain death, unless they somehow managed to escape or were rescued.

My favourite photos were of Camelot Theme Park’s Knightmare rollercoaster in Chorley, Lancashire,

the City Hall Subway Station in New York

and the Gary City Methodist Church in Indiana.

Here then is a compendium of the misplaced and the neglected. Ruins, ancient and modern, beautiful, ugly and appalling, and in varying states of appreciation and restoration, or lack thereof. The ungotten and the forgotten no one remembers. Abandonment is not a cause to give up all hope but the opposite, if anything, encouraging us all to think longer and harder about the world to come and what might be worth salvaging from the wreckage.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and White Lion Publishing, an imprint of Quarto Publishing Group, for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Explore the places that time forgot. Abandoned, mysterious, sleeping monuments around the world have been relegated to the margins of history, pushed off the map and out of sight.

From ancient ruins and crumbling castles to more recent relics – an art deco New York subway station, a Soviet ghost town in the Arctic Circle, a flooded Thai mall teeming with aquatic life – Travis Elborough takes you on a journey into these strange, overlooked and disappearing worlds and immortalises their fates.

Original maps and stunning colour photography accompany Travis Elborough’s moving historic and geographic accounts of each site. The featured locations are a stark reminder of what was, and the accounts in this investigative book help to bring their stories back to life, telling us what happened, when and why, and to whom.

The book features 40 sites, including:

Santa Claus, Arizona, USA: A festive tourist resort turned ghost town deep in the desert where once you could meet Santa Claus any day of the year;

Crystal Palace Subway, London, UK: One of the city’s best-kept secrets is an underground, cathedral-like relic from where many Victorian commuters bustled through;

Montserrat, West Indies: The small Caribbean island with a population of 5,000 that was evacuated when its volcano erupted in 1995. The volcano is still active and nearly half the island remains a designated exclusion zone;

Balaklava Submarine Base, Crimea: The former top-secret Soviet submarine base that was kept off all official maps and known as Object 825 GTS;

Volterra Psychiatric Hospital, Tuscany, Italy: Once dubbed ‘the place of no return’, this long-closed lunatic asylum once housed 6,000 patients who were never allowed to leave.

9 January, 2022 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 4 stars, Abandoned Places, NetGalley, Photography, Quarto Publishing Group, White Lion Publishing

Wings Over Water – Wings for Wetlands

Approximately seven out of ten birds that migrate over North America rely on prairie wetlands during part of their life cycle

This book was my introduction to America’s prairie wetlands, which span “parts of five states – Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa – and three Canadian provinces – Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.”

This book and the IMAX 3D movie Wings Over Water are aimed at awakening the continent and the world to the need to protect the prairie wetlands, North America’s greatest ecological asset. The prairies are key to abundant birds, clean water, and sufficient grasslands to keep our continent healthy. Without them, we face a future of depleted water resources, decreased water quality, ruinous flooding, and a greatly diminished ability to sequester carbon. The implications for the continent’s bird populations are even more bleak.

The film runs for 44 minutes, a fraction of the over 220 hours of footage that was shot. Although a number of birds are included in this book, the film focuses on three: mallards, sandhill cranes and yellow warblers. It doesn’t hurt that it’s being narrated by Michael Keaton.

I’ve done this backwards, reading the companion book prior to seeing the film. I expect I will appreciate the behind the scenes information more once I’ve watched the film.

I’m hoping the facts about the birds and their life cycles that I was keen to learn from this book will be presented on screen. There were a few, just not as many as I would have liked. My favourite fun fact was that yellow warblers weigh “less than three sheets of paper”.

I adored the photos in this book and had trouble choosing a favourite, so instead I’ll share one each of the three stars of the film.

When I was growing up, the only times I experienced IMAX was at the IMAX Theatre at Dreamworld in Queensland when my family did the theme park hop while we were on holiday. I was always mesmerised by them and still remember one scene where my stomach did the first drop of a rollercoaster lurch as the camera suddenly dipped into a gaping canyon. I couldn’t get enough.

I haven’t seen an IMAX film for years but definitely want to find a way to watch Wings Over Water. If this book is any indication, the cinematography is going to be breathtaking. Don’t believe me? Check out the trailer!

You may also want to have a wander around the film’s website.

Marvel at the richness of this northern kingdom for wildlife. Then find your own place in the movement to save the stunning prairie wetlands of North America.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Girl Friday Productions and Flashpoint for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

A beautiful, photo-rich companion book to the internationally distributed IMAX film of the same name, Wings Over Water celebrates the prairie wetlands of North America and the birds that live and breed in this critical habitat.

Covering 300,000 square miles stretching from Canada through Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa, the prairie wetlands are one of Earth’s most important, yet little-known, ecosystems. More than half of all North American migratory waterfowl and 96 species of songbirds breed and nest there, and more than 60 percent of the continent’s ducks are hatched there. Wings Over Water immerses readers in this awe-inspiring, essential place, using more than 300 breathtaking photos and inspiring essays from some of the North America’s foremost conservationists to shine a spotlight on these critical breeding grounds and the necessity of preserving these threatened environments.

Wings Over Water is a joint venture of the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, which works to secure the future of hunting, fishing, and land management; Ducks Unlimited Inc. and Ducks Unlimited Canada, the world’s largest nonprofit organisations dedicated to conserving North America’s disappearing wetland and waterfowl habitats; and the National Audubon Society, the world’s oldest nonprofit environmental organisations dedicated to bird conservation.

26 December, 2021 by Schizanthus Nerd Categories: ReviewTags: 4.5 stars, Flashpoint, Girl Friday Productions, NetGalley, Photography