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Outside Magazine December 2004

Dispatches: Holiday Gift Ideas
See the World
These high-impact holiday gift books are packed with images that challenge perspectives—and feed dreams of global adventure

Photos of Himalaya, Aerial Photography, & The Travel Book | Todd Hido's Photography, Joel Tudor's Surfing Book, & Andy Goldsworthy's New Book | Craig Thompson's Graphic Novel Travel Journal & High-Octane DVDs


	(Book photo by Kim Kurian)

Himalaya + (Harry N. Abrams, $50)
Éric Valli's Himalaya is a slab of a book, with more than 200 color images taken during the two decades the French photographer and filmmaker (his Himalaya was nominated for the 1999 Oscar for best foreign film) spent living in Nepal. The rugged, austere landscape is beautiful, but Valli's atmospheric snapshots of children frolicking in millet fields and herdsmen threading steep, snowy passes—accompanied by thoughtful essays on Nepalese culture and geography by Paris-based anthropologist Anne de Sales—prove that the appeal of this kingdom extends far beyond its tallest peaks.

—Jason Stevenson



	(Book photo by Kim Kurian)

Earthsong + (Phaidon, $60)
German aerial photographer Bernhard Edmaier's new collection looks more like a series of abstract paintings than a book of landscape photography. Earthsong features more than 250 color images of every environment on our planet, from Namibian sand dunes to Day-Glo–green glacial moss in Iceland. What sends the book into literary orbit is geologist Angelika Jung-Hüttl's fascinating text describing how air, fire, water, and rock became the subjects in Edmaier's lens.

—Will Palmer



	(Book photo by Kim Kurian)

The Travel Book + (Lonely Planet, $40)
Leave it to Lonely Planet to give us a 444-page dream book covering 200-plus countries and dependencies—now your fingers can do the traipsing from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Instead of dry statistics, The Travel Book (edited by Roz Hopkins) delivers soulful snapshots of place, with 1,200 photos—Balinese girls in procession, a healing ceremony in Gabon—along with savvy cultural observations from LP's expert travelers. Armchair adventure doesn't get better than this.

—Leslie Weeden

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