Would you like to make a trade?

[urbpan]

It's been a while since I've seen the image of a product and felt a visceral desire to own it. Someone just posted a link mentioning The Sibley Guide to Trees and I felt that desire grab my chest.



The Sibley Guide to Birds upended the status quo in bird guides by simply being better than anything else out there. It meticulously depicted all the North American bird species, the plumage of both sexes and that of juveniles, as well as regional and unusual variations. It included how postures and temperature can change the silhouette of a bird, and detailed the anatomical terms of different plumage areas. There was a huge one for both coasts and field-sized east and west coast editions.

The fact that it was also a labor of love of one self-taught birder crossing the country for a decade in a van full of paint and canvases made me feel great to buy it. I met David Sibley at the Audubon Shop in Lincoln, and found that he was humble and personable, and living in Concord, practically a neighbor.

I have an ugly void in my field guides where a great tree guide belongs. I have an ancient golden guide, which has sufficed, and a guide to urban trees which helps fill out the commonly planted exotics. The fact that Sibley has now applied his "formidable skills of identification and illustration to the trees of North America" is the best news I've read in a long time.

I am loathe to add more possessions to my life, but I am willing to trade. If you have an extra copy of this book, I will gladly exchange a huge amount of used CDs--in excess of double the value of the book--for it. I know it's a long shot, and that I'll probably just buy myself a copy at the Audubon Shop when I go to Drumlin Farm September 27th to teach a mushroom class. But if you want a huge amount of used CDs, this would be a great opportunity for you.

I hope he's working on a shrubs and herbaceous perennials book!

Comments

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

No, but if you find two, can I have one?

[charliemarlowe.livejournal.com]

I would gladly buy you one for some sort of trade, but I probably don't like the same kind of music you do-- but I would trade for some books-- I do like field guides and the like. Even really old ones-- even if they're not on the Midwest. I actually bought my copy of Sibley's Guide to Trees-- I had it on order since June/July.

I like the book called Identifying Trees by Michael Williams. It's got wonderful colored pictures and covers most of the trees found in the Midwest. It's on amazon on http://tinyurl.com/p3sbko .

I thought I'd comment in case you want a copy-- I do get my employee discount of the $39.95, so after all is said and done it is about $28.

It is very pretty, by the way! Well worth the money.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Well, my Tuvan throat-singing CDs are spoken for, but I have a good variety of other CDs I'm passing along. Probably you read my journal enough to know if our tastes are different.

What kinds of/how many books would you accept in trade? I have a couple field guides from my mom's old collection (from 1969 or so) and I have a few interesting international ones I would be happy to pass along. Let me know--this sounds like a good trade in progress!

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

ooh now i want it tooooo!

I am a nut about trees, not about species but about paintings of them, and painting them...

[obie119.livejournal.com]

Holy cow, a Sibley Tree Guide!!!! That will be amazing - thanks for mentioning it; I'm going to get one next time I'm at Drumlin. I don't mind buying field guides as they are amongst the most useful and oft-used of books here.

[m0053.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm drooling over that book and I have two other tree field guides right in front of me! One is Native Trees of the Southwest - l katherine kirkman, et. all, but it don't have a good selection of pictures for each species. The other is the the field guide by the national forest foundation and it works pretty well. I wish they had one listing dispersers/pollinators, though.