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52<br />
DECEMBER <strong>2009</strong> | UNITED.COM<br />
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Living Large<br />
Just in time for the holidays, a whole wide world of large-format<br />
editions lands with a thunk. // BY AARON GELL<br />
CONSIDER THE NOT-SO-HUMBLE coff eetable<br />
book—so hefty you can barely<br />
lift the thing, and yet somehow able to<br />
transport a reader far from home.<br />
Start your journey with the<br />
gorgeously produced Painters of Utah’s<br />
Canyons and Deserts (Gibbs Smith),<br />
which brings together a number of<br />
impressionistic images of Zion National<br />
Park and other breathtaking sites.<br />
Meanwhile, anyone who’d rather scale<br />
such peaks than paint them will love The<br />
Stone Masters: California Rock Climbers<br />
in the Seventies (Stonemaster), the story<br />
of a handful of hippies who took on some<br />
of the most dangerous climbs with little<br />
more than bandannas for protection.<br />
Next, drop in on Charles Darwin’s<br />
favorite island getaway with Galapagos:<br />
Both Sides of the Coin (Imagine), a vivid<br />
look at the islands’ animals and humans,<br />
and how they interact (to sometimes<br />
damaging eff ect), and delve into China<br />
(Abbeville), a photo book nearly as<br />
overwhelming as the country itself.<br />
Then there’s India. With its numerous<br />
castes and cultures, it’s not an easy place<br />
for outsiders to grasp, which explains<br />
why a new book simply reaches for the<br />
alphabet. Clive Limpkin’s India Exposed:<br />
The Subcontinent A-Z (Abbeville)<br />
illuminates the country in a series of<br />
pictures arranged encyclopedia-style<br />
(from astrology to zebu, a breed of cattle),<br />
and To India, With Love (Assouline) off ers<br />
a collection of snapshots and memories<br />
from a passel of well-known contributors,<br />
from Adrien Brody to Zubin Mehta.<br />
Photographer Michael Loyd Young<br />
illuminates the Mississippi River Delta<br />
region in the aff ecting Blues, Booze &<br />
BBQ (powerHouse), while legendary<br />
lensman William Eggleston, who made<br />
his reputation shooting the American<br />
South, ventures across the pond for<br />
a lyrical survey, William Eggleston:<br />
Paris (Steidl). And acclaimed fashion<br />
photographer Mario Testino turns his<br />
lens on Rio de Janeiro with<br />
MaRIO DE JANEIRO Testino (Taschen),<br />
sprinkling an array of humid<br />
Copacabana landscapes among his<br />
dazzling snapshots of Gisele Bundchen<br />
and other local attractions.<br />
Somewhat more instructive is the<br />
monumental Los Angeles: Portrait of<br />
a City (Taschen), a pictorial history of<br />
the city of angels, beginning with an<br />
amazing 1891 silver print of fl inty-eyed<br />
settlers on a dusty ranch in what is now<br />
Hollywood, and ending with presentday<br />
L.A.—considerably more glittering<br />
if somehow just as anxious.<br />
Travel’s romantic past is lovingly<br />
evoked in Coast to Coast: Vintage<br />
Travel in North America (Vendome),<br />
which off ers a cross-continental journey<br />
by way of vintage photographs and<br />
handpainted postcards, and in<br />
Gypset Style (Assouline), author Julia<br />
Chaplin’s breezy look at the eclectic chic<br />
of certain well-heeled global nomads.<br />
Finally, those with a yearning to<br />
wander even farther afi eld will gravitate<br />
toward Michael Benson’s<br />
Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle<br />
(Abrams), which features eye-popping<br />
imagery of nebulae, galaxy clusters and<br />
other cosmic phenomena. And to think<br />
you can see it all without even leaving<br />
the earth.<br />
PHOTOGRAPH BY CLAIRE BENOIST
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