Whenever I am bound for some far-off destination, at least one of the books I stuff into my already over-stuffed bag will be a relevant volume of the Princeton Field Guides or Princeton Pocket Guides series. I make it a point of maintaining an extensive collection of them for just such purposes.
Field guides are wonderful things – particularly those that feature top-quality photographs or illustrations of their subjects. But sometimes, high quality as they may be, it’s simply difficult to get a sense of the animal, plant, or what-have-you as it is in life without being able to see it life-size. Which is why so many naturalists have been praising University of Chicago’s “Six Hundred Life-Size” books; they present their subjects, just as the title says, in life-size.