Daniel Mathews

This well-written, smartly illustrated guide covers it all: geology, plants, animal, and other life. I refer to it over and over, and get lost in it, continuing to read for many pages after answering my initial question. The only problem with it is that the wonderful photos make it too heavy to carry comfortably on a mountain hike. I leave it in the car to look stuff up before and after the walking.

OK, I haven't actually sat down and read this, but I have browsed it enough to see that it would be pretty interesting to have along on a flight. For anyone that doesn't just want to sit mindlessly but would rather know why things look the way they do, including clouds, it would be handy. Granted, it would be even handier to have an app that can get your real-time location and feed you details more precisely, but this is as good as it gets in book form. There is a CD that comes with the show more book, but I haven't checked it out yet. show less

Needs an editor ASAP! Words are missing or misspelled, and some sentences make no sense!

Includes the CD. The view from 30,000 feet with explanations of what you are seeing.