A quotation for every picture is also included taken from Virgil, Shakespeare, Herman Melville, D.H. Lawrence, Eugene Delacroix and others.

    The quintessential boom-and-bust highway of the American West, Route 66 once hosted a thriving array of boom towns built around oil wells, railroad stops, cattle ranches, resorts, stagecoach stops, and gold mines. Join Route 66 expert Jim Hinckley as he tours more than 25 ghost towns, rich in stories and history, complemented by gorgeous sepia-tone and color photography by Kerrick James. Also includes directions and travel tips for your ghost-town explorations along Route 66.Explore the beauty and nostalgia of these abandoned communities along America’s favorite highway!

    This authoritative guide provides a handy, all-in-one reference for photographers using either medium (or both), combining the practical know-how of more than 50 outstanding professional photographers with National Geographic's world-renowned tradition of excellence and expertise. The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography presents ten easy-to-read chapters exploring every aspect of the digital revolution. With straightforward explanations of both simple, all-but-foolproof equipment like inexpensive autofocus point-and-shoot cameras and of sophisticated, megapixel single lens reflex units boasting interchangeable lenses. It also covers important accessories; provides advice of all kinds, from key facts and basic tips for beginners to advanced techniques for skilled amateurs; and addresses the essentials of PhotoShop editing, scanning and printing, effective archiving, and more. Along with digital information, there's also plenty of material on traditional film, from old techniques to helpful sidebars on when to use film rather than digital. Throughout the book dozens of well-known, highly accomplished photographers showcase some of their most famous shots and share both the human stories behind them and the specific technical details of their creation. This wonderful mix of vivid examples and vital nuts-and-bolts information makes The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography a uniquely useful, indispensable reference for photographers everywhere.

    Over the course of the next three-and-a-half years, twelve lunar explorers, including Alan Shepard and Gene Cernan, touched down on the moon's surface. Author and engineer Suzanne Slade reveals how the Apollo missions (1969-1972) built upon one another and led to important discoveries about our nearest neighbor in space. Back matter includes an afterword by Alan Bean (1932-2018), the fourth person to walk on the moon.

    Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the web's popular Ask the Pilot feature, separates the fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know...-How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them-Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety-The real story on congestion, delays, and the dysfunction of the modern airport-The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation-Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security-Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service-The colors and cultures of the airlines we love to hateCockpit Confidential covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying, but also the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying.It's the ideal book for frequent flyers, nervous passengers, and global travelers.Refreshed and vastly expanded from the original Ask the Pilot, with approximately 75 percent new material.

    Gathers previously unpublished color photographs of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, Mount McKinley, Mono Lake, Death Valley, and White Sands National Monument.

    The many-pointed star formed from large icicles balances on a rock in a quiet Dumfriesshire valley, a delicate bamboo screen stands on a Japanese beach, a great serpentine ridge of earth extends along a disused railway cutting on Tyneside, four massive snow rings mark the position of the North Pole.

    This gorgeously photographed lifestyle guide gives readers an insider's tour of the City by the Bay through Victoria Smith's unique lens. Organized by neighborhood, each chapter features enchanting photos of hidden corners, local color, landmarks, and hotspots, revealing why so many people—Victoria included—are falling head over heels for this amazing city. Brimming with original, dreamy photography and packaged as a gorgeous jacketed hardcover, this lovely book makes a perfect gift for photography fans, San Francisco dwellers, visitors to the city, or anyone who has left their heart in San Francisco.

    Landing on the Moon presented an ideal goal all on its own, but the government’s urgency in designing the Apollo program was actually brought about by the Soviet Union, which spent much of the 1950s leaving the United States in its dust (and rocket fuel). In 1957, at a time when people were concerned about communism and nuclear war, many Americans were dismayed by news that the Soviet Union was successfully launching satellites into orbit. Among those concerned was President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose space program was clearly lagging a few years behind the Soviets’ space program. From 1959-1963, the United States worked toward putting satellites and humans into orbit via the Mercury program, but Eisenhower’s administration was already designing plans for the Apollo program by 1960, a year before the first Russian orbited the Earth and two years before John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed Congress and asked the nation to “commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Given America’s inability to even put a man in orbit yet, this seemed like an overly ambitious goal, and it isn’t even clear that Kennedy himself believed it possible; after all, he was reluctant to meet NASA Administrator James E. Webb’s initial funding requests. As Apollo 11’s name suggests, there were actually a number of Apollo missions that came before, many of which included testing the rockets and different orbital and lunar modules in orbit. In fact, it wasn’t until Apollo 8 that a manned vehicle was sent towards the Moon and back, and before that mission, the most famous Apollo mission was Apollo 1, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Over the decade, NASA would spend tens of billions on the Apollo missions, the most expensive peacetime program in American history to that point, and even though Apollo 11 was only one of almost 20 Apollo missions, it was certainly the crown jewel. only one of nearly 20 Apollo missions conducted by NASA. And to make Apollo 11 a success, it would take nearly a decade of planning by government officials, hard work by NASA scientists, intense training by the astronauts, and several missions preceding Apollo 11. It also cost over $20 billion, making the Apollo program the most expensive peacetime program in American history at the time. Apollo 12 successfully landed astronauts on the Moon just a few months after Apollo 11’s successful mission. Apollo 12 was actually more successful than Apollo 11 from the standpoint of fulfilling the mission objectives, but it was naturally overshadowed since it did not come first. Another reason Apollo 12 is mostly forgotten today can be credited to the dramatic and fateful Apollo 13 mission, which took twists and turns nobody could have predicted when it launched on April 11, 1970. Apollo 13’s mission was to land on the Moon near the Fra Mauro highlands, which were hills that had somehow formed in the middle of a huge crater tens of miles wide. The mission was supposed to test for seismic activity and take samples to analyze the crater and try to find an explanation for the formation of the hills.

    This amusing but highly informative photographic journey reveals the idiosyncrasy and inventiveness that characterize the construction of the humble toilet around the globe.

    Sharpe James, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, recalls the sense of excitement and possibility he felt when Jackie Robinson became the first black ballplayer in the major leagues. Gilles Ryan remembers what it was like to be a high-school student in Dayton, Tennessee, during the Scopes Trial. Connie Chang talks about emigrating to the United States from Korea and establishing a liquor store in Los Angeles, only to have it destroyed in the civil unrest. Comparisons to Harold Evans's The American Century are, perhaps, inevitable, but in addition to the emphasis on ordinary lives, The Century is further distinguished by the effective use of color photography (as well as several black-and-white shots). The book's sweeping narrative, shaped by Jennings and Brewster's comprehensive text, also flows a bit more smoothly than Evans's telegraphic prose; one can almost imagine Jennings reciting from these pages as he hosts the ABC/History Channel documentaries to which this book is a companion piece.

    "Cosmos" explores the celestial panorama one step at a time and by illustrating the planets, moons, stars, nebulae, white dwarfs, black holes and other exotica that populate the heavens with over 450 of the most spectacular and up-to-date photographs and illustrations.

    Eliot Porter's photographs of the natural world, spanning thirty-five years and five continents -- from an Antarctic ice floe to an American desert to an Icelandic lava field -- reveal in mesmerizing ways what scientists are beginning to see for themselves: the patterns, relations, and interactions present in nature's disorder and wildness. This is the perfect marriage of image and text -- brilliant full-color photographs by the preeminent nature photographer of his generation together with an illuminating essay by the widely praised author of Chaos.

    All of them - hikers, hunters, fishermen, campers, and canoeists - are drawn to the woods for some special reason. Yet few of them see the forest as a whole, as the web of life it truly is. Here, from New York Times bestselling author Richard M. Ketchum, is the extraordinary story of forests and the trees that comprise them.

    A realistic guide to becoming an Astronaut at a young age.