Bill, is the author selling the pdf format anywhere?
On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 11:17 PM, Mixon Bill <bmixon...@austin.rr.com>wrote: > I'm sure this won't raise a lot of interest, but... > > Caves and Karst of the Water Sinks Area. Philip C. Lucas. Revised edition, > 2012. 8.25 by 10.25 inches, 369 pages, hardbound. $95.58 plus postage from > lulu.com; search for Philip Lucas. > > This is a great book. After I received the privately published book, I > delayed reviewing it, hoping that the NSS would pick it up, but for some > reason they passed. They could have published it with almost no effort and > little risk and sold it for good bit less, if only to be of service to > its members, but a large hardbound book with color illustrations throughout > cannot be really inexpensive. > > The book is the story of what happens when a caver with an engineering > bent buys property in Virginia that contains small caves and potential > digs. The result has been fifteen miles of cave with entrances on Lucas's > property and that of a neighbor, including the Water Sinks system, > Helictite Cave, and Wishing Well Cave. The exploration of these caves has > been unusually well documented, both in trip reports and photographs. > Besides maps and descriptions of the caves, the book contains reports on > essentially all the digging or exploration trips, mostly written by Lucas. > I actually found the trip reports much more interesting reading than the > formal cave descriptions, as they give a better idea of the caves and the > effort that went into finding and mapping them. The technical aspects are > fascinating, especially the innovative ways of temporarily stabilizing > breakdown and creating airflow to locate connections. "Straws," however, > are nowhere really described. > The editing by Nathan Farrar is excellent, and the design and layout, by > Lucas and Farrar, are very well done. Some of the nearly six hundred color > photographs could have used some color adjustment, but generally they > illustrate the work and the caves very well. A special effort seems to have > been made to include lots of clear photographs of the participants in the > projects. (One of them would make a good hobbit.) Portraits on pages 101 > and 104 are especially nice. > > I can't deny that this is an expensive book about a pretty narrow subject, > and the story could have been told almost as well in a less costly way. (No > profit is being made by anybody but Lulu.com.) To anyone who really likes > cave books, it's worth it. > > Lulu.com prints your copy on demand. The result in this case is sturdily > bound in a printed hardcover. They also sell a number of other books on > caves and caving. If you just search for caves you'll have to wade through > scores of probably awful self-published novels. Besides Water Sinks, worthy > of note are The Hollow Mountain: 1974–2006 by the Imperial College Caving > Club (deep-cave exploration, printed paperback or free PDF, reviewed in > March 2008 NSS News), Al Warild's Vertical (techniques manual, paperback, > reviewed August 2002), and D. F. Machant's Life on a Line (rope rescue, > paperback, reviewed June 2003).—Bill Mixon > ------------------------------**---------- > Today is the last day of your life so far. > ------------------------------**---------- > You may "reply" to the address this message > came from, but for long-term use, save: > Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu > AMCS: a...@amcs-pubs.org or sa...@amcs-pubs.org > > > ------------------------------**------------------------------**--------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > texascavers-unsubscribe@**texascavers.com<texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com> > For additional commands, e-mail: > texascavers-help@texascavers.**com<texascavers-h...@texascavers.com> > >
