And for the coffee table

Laurence A. Marschall

Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs, by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart (Candlewick Press; $26.99)

Talk about intelligent design! The creators of this unique volume are artists and graphic designers, not scientists, and they have put together one of the most diverting and attractive dinosaur books you'll ever see. Its conventional facade conceals six internal two-page spreads, each featuring a giant pop-up creature. Around the margins of each spread are smaller "books," which in turn contain more dino-related pop-ups. An archaeopteryx, feathers and all, spreads its wings as you open one page; a lumbering ankylosaur rises from the folds of another, its spiny tail raised threateningly. There's just enough text to help budding dinophiles understand what they are seeing, and to remind old fossils like me what we learned about these "terrible lizards" when we were young. To top it off, the authors promise at least two more Encyclopedia Prehistorica volumes to come, one on extinct mammals, and another on extinct sea creatures.

Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity, by Andrew Robinson, in association with the Albert Einstein Archives (Harry N. Abrams; $29.95)

The host of contributors to this centennial volume attests to the broad influence of Einstein's work since the publication of his first seminal papers in 1905. Physicists Philip Anderson, Stephen Hawking, Joao Magneijo, and Steven Weinberg, explain how the two major currents of twentieth-century physics, namely quantum mechanics and relativity, began with Einstein's work. They further show how current attempts to formulate a "theory of everything" are rooted in his yearning for a unified cosmology.

Andrew Robinson, an editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement, reviews Einstein's public persona, most notably his deep-seated pacifism, which coexisted, sometimes uneasily, with his support for the state of Israel. Even such personalities as Philip Glass ("Einstein and Music") and Arthur C. Clarke ("Einstein: Twentieth-Century Icon") have a few words to say about the man Time magazine named "Person of the Century."

So much has already been written about Einstein that there are few revelations here. But the writing is elegant, and the illustrations impeccable: among them are many seldom-seen letters and photographs from the archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Altogether, they make the volume a gift worthy of the great soul it celebrates.

Art of the Ancestors: Antique North American Indian Art, by George Everett Shaw, with Steven C. Brown, Benson L. Lanford, and Bill Mercer (University of New Mexico Press; $65.00)

Lascaux: Movement, Space, and Time, by Norbert Aujoulat (Harry N. Abrams; $65.00)

No one knows the identity of the artists whose work graces the pages of these showpiece volumes. Yet in a way, it seems, we know them well. In the first book, art dealer and collector George Everett Shaw has teamed up with three other experts to present an album of Native American artistry that, in his words, "approaches perfection." The noble visage on a Tsimshian headdress, inlaid with eyes and teeth of abalone, or a simple Iroquois drinking cup, bearing a stylized beaver carved in maple, express an aesthetic that speaks to a common humanity.

The second volume, Lascaux, written by a geologist and archaeologist, is a lavish and comprehensive record of the celebrated cave in southwestern France whose walls display polychrome images of bison, bulls, horses, and stags. In spite of their familiarity, the images remain remarkably dynamic and pack a surprising emotional punch.

Most of the Indian pieces in Art of the Ancestors date to the 1800s, by which time the Lascaux drawings were already 18,000 years old. But browsing through both books, you feel as if you're looking at precious legacies from venerable members of your own family.

A Dazzle of Dragonflies, by Forrest L. Mitchell and James L. Lasswell (Texas A&M University Press; $39.95)

Although their fossil ancestors, with wingspans of two feet or more, were among the largest flying insects in the history of the planet, dragonflies are the embodiment of delicacy. Tissue-paper wings bear their needle-thin bodies just above the surface of a pond or brook, while their legs form a basket to trap small prey for a meal on the fly. If they seem in a hurry as they dart from perch to perch, perhaps it's because life is so short: a typical dragonfly lives for less than a month after it emerges from the larval stage, even if it's lucky enough to escape being eaten.

Mitchell and Lasswell, both entomologists at Texas A&M, have stopped this action on the wing, as it were, compiling an attractive and accessible album of photographs of North American dragonflies, with enough intriguing facts to make anyone into a dragonfly buff. The most attractive illustrations were made with the help of a flatbed scanner, which seems ideal for creatures so thin they are almost two-dimensional. The authors even offer detailed instructions on how to catch, sedate, and pose your own neighborhood dragonflies before releasing them back into the wild.

What's Out There: Images from Here to the Edge of the Universe, by Mary K. Baumann, Will Hopkins, Loralee Nolletti, and Michael Soluri, with a foreword by Stephen Hawking (Duncan Baird; $29.95) Evolving Cosmos, by Govert Schilling (Cambridge University Press; $40.00)

The pace of astronomical discovery has been so rapid in the past two decades that it seems appropriate, as a yearly routine, to take stock of where the universe stands. These two colorful coffee-table books, however, are far from routine. What's Out There features a comprehensive gallery of color images from Earth- and space-based telescopes. The visual impact is extraordinary, though the organization (alphabetically from "aurora" to "WMAP") seems to defy common sense. It may take a bit of jumping back and forth for the reader to figure out what's out there within such a procrustean framework, but every leap will be enjoyable.

By contrast, Evolving Cosmos, lucidly written by the science journalist Govert Schilling, organizes its material according to the physical processes that govern the universe. Chapters deal with topics such as "creation" (highlighting the evidence for the big bang) and "moulding" (collisions that shaped the solar system). Lovely to look at, Schilling's book provides not only decoration for the coffee table, but food for thought.

Birds: The Art of Ornithology, by Jonathan Elphick (Rizzoli; $60.00)

It takes extraordinary technique to render the texture and iridescence of the plumage and contour of the avian form. Rarer still is the ability to breathe life into paintings of creatures that can be observed only as stuffed specimens, or perhaps as distant flashes of color in the upper branches of trees. So it's not surprising that great ornithological illustrators such as John James Audubon bring to their subject both the ingenuity of a scientist and the soul of an artist.

Now Jonathan Elphick, a writer and zoologist with his own field guide to British and Irish birds to his credit, has brought the work of the great bird illustrators of past centuries together into one lavishly produced, thoroughly researched history of the art form. About a hundred pages are devoted to the works of Audubon's seventeenth-and eighteenth-century predecessors. Eleazar Albin, for instance, published his Natural History of Birds in 1738, featuring the first hand-colored illustrations of British birds. The work of artists such as William Ellis, John Latham, and Sarah Stone reflected the plethora of new species sent home by colonial naturalists around the world. And judging from the last 200 pages of the book, which showcase paintings by Audubon as well as by the finest bird artists of today, ornithological art continues to grow and flourish.

Frogs: A Chorus of Colors, by John L. Behler and Deborah A. Behler (Sterling Publishing Co.; $19.95)

Big-eyed amphibians peer out from nearly every page of this collaborative effort by the curator of herpetology at the Bronx Zoo and the editor-in-chief of Wildlife Conservation magazine. The gallery of close-ups includes dignified portraits of unusual species such as the Malayan horned frog, which resembles a miniature owl, as well as action shots of frogs leaping at insects, dining on snakes several times their size, or even, as in one scandalous photo of Costa Rica's Monteverde golden toad, engaging in a jaunty round of group sex.

But the book's title doesn't do justice to the accompanying text, which is hopping with delightful bits of frog lore. Did you know that frogs in the genus Phyllomedusa have opposable digits? Were you fully aware that some frogs in Europe and North America routinely freeze in winter and return to life with the spring thaw? The only downside to the book is frogdom's uncertain future. The Monteverde golden toad is already extinct, and a third of the world's frog species are now threatened by environmental toxins, fungal infections, and the indiscriminate draining of wetlands.

LAURENCE A. MARSCHALL, author of The Supernova Story, is W.K. T. Sahm Professor of Physics at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, and director of Project CLEA, which produces widely used simulation software for education in astronomy. He is the 2005 winner of the Education Prize of the American Astronomical Society.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
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