Fans pick 100 books like Roloff Beny Interprets in Photographs Pleasure of Ruins

By Rose Macaulay,

Here are 100 books that Roloff Beny Interprets in Photographs Pleasure of Ruins fans have personally recommended if you like Roloff Beny Interprets in Photographs Pleasure of Ruins. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Image and Exploration: Early Travel Photography from 1850 to 1914

John Wilson Author Of Places not Paisley: Photographic Peregrinations: Book 3, The Ruined World

From my list on travel photography books that make the past come alive.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an author of 50+ books of historical fiction and non-fiction for kids, teens, and adults I am handicapped by being unable to travel in time or go to the places I set my stories. I have long used photography as an attempt to capture a sense of places and the people who inhabit them, but I gradually realized that my images were not simply an adjunct to the stories I was telling but that the best of them had their own tales to tell. Through photographs, jumbled piles of stone became a gateway to a lost, magical past and a trigger for my imagination.

John's book list on travel photography books that make the past come alive

John Wilson Why did John love this book?

Not only am I enthralled by the large images of lost places and people, but I am in awe of the fact that the photographers even reached some of the wildest places on earth with over a hundred pounds of camera equipment and boxes of mostly poisonous chemicals.

I will never again complain about sitting in the cold or the heat with my lightweight 35mm camera, waiting for the lighting to be just right.

By Olivier Loiseaux (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Image and Exploration as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the second half of the 19th century, unprecedented advances in technology resulted in the collision of travel and photography. Explorers were able to document their journeys, hauling enormous amounts of equipment over arduous terrain. The results were breathtaking. This collection of photographs takes readers on a historic global tour that includes five continents and offers a visible record of worlds long-since vanished. Beginning in North Africa amid the pyramids and along the Nile, this book takes readers down through the Sahara to South Africa via Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Zanzibar. The journey continues from South to North America, capturing images…


Book cover of Over Vales and Hills: The Illustrated Poetry of the Natural World

John Wilson Author Of Places not Paisley: Photographic Peregrinations: Book 3, The Ruined World

From my list on travel photography books that make the past come alive.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an author of 50+ books of historical fiction and non-fiction for kids, teens, and adults I am handicapped by being unable to travel in time or go to the places I set my stories. I have long used photography as an attempt to capture a sense of places and the people who inhabit them, but I gradually realized that my images were not simply an adjunct to the stories I was telling but that the best of them had their own tales to tell. Through photographs, jumbled piles of stone became a gateway to a lost, magical past and a trigger for my imagination.

John's book list on travel photography books that make the past come alive

John Wilson Why did John love this book?

For me, poetry from Chaucer to Seamus Heaney can trigger an emotional reaction in the same way that a well-chosen image can.

So, it is natural that photographs and poems of the natural world should be paired. The depths that each adds to the other can hold me in thrall for hours as I delve back and forth and draw out every last emotion.

Book cover of Lost London 1870-1945

John Wilson Author Of Places not Paisley: Photographic Peregrinations: Book 3, The Ruined World

From my list on travel photography books that make the past come alive.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an author of 50+ books of historical fiction and non-fiction for kids, teens, and adults I am handicapped by being unable to travel in time or go to the places I set my stories. I have long used photography as an attempt to capture a sense of places and the people who inhabit them, but I gradually realized that my images were not simply an adjunct to the stories I was telling but that the best of them had their own tales to tell. Through photographs, jumbled piles of stone became a gateway to a lost, magical past and a trigger for my imagination.

John's book list on travel photography books that make the past come alive

John Wilson Why did John love this book?

I love cities: Rome, Paris, Madrid. These are easy cities to love; all you need do is stroll around the Colosseum, walk along the banks of the Seine, or hang out in the Puerto del Sol.

I love London as well, but it hides itself better. You have to work to see the real London. Great damage was done during the Blitz, but much greater damage was done over the years by thoughtless development.

These photographs allow me to browse through a landscape that no longer exists.

By Philip Davies,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lost London 1870-1945 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A spectacular presentation of photographs of Tudor, Georgian and Victorian buildings captured just before their destruction - most seen here for the first time.
"This endlessly absorbing book that is at once a record of destruction, a haunting collection of relics, and a door into the past." - John Carey, The Sunday Times.

"Each picture contains a novel in this deeply moving, unforgettable book." - Duncan Fallowell, Daily Express. "A magical book about the capital's past." - Sunday Times.


Book cover of South with Endurance: Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition 1914-1917

John Wilson Author Of Places not Paisley: Photographic Peregrinations: Book 3, The Ruined World

From my list on travel photography books that make the past come alive.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an author of 50+ books of historical fiction and non-fiction for kids, teens, and adults I am handicapped by being unable to travel in time or go to the places I set my stories. I have long used photography as an attempt to capture a sense of places and the people who inhabit them, but I gradually realized that my images were not simply an adjunct to the stories I was telling but that the best of them had their own tales to tell. Through photographs, jumbled piles of stone became a gateway to a lost, magical past and a trigger for my imagination.

John's book list on travel photography books that make the past come alive

John Wilson Why did John love this book?

Antarctica is the one continent I have never taken a photograph in. It has barely changed in the past 100 years, but Hurley’s images still take me to an unknown world and how people have struggled to survive there.

I love the way he can capture the majesty of a landscape that is mostly just one colour and how his photographs give a sense of the puny humans grappling with the harshness of the environment.

By Frank Hurley (photographer),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked South with Endurance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

pp.244, b/w illustrations, heavy book additional postage will apply


Book cover of Breaking the Maya Code

James Clackson Author Of Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds

From my list on decipherment and lost languages.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was lucky enough to have been taught Latin at school, and I remember my first teacher telling the class that a tandem bicycle was so called because Latin tandem means ‘at length’. That was the beginning with my fascination for words, etymologies, and languages. At University I was able to specialise in Greek, Latin, and Indo-European languages and then for my PhD I learnt Armenian (which has an alphabet to die for: 36 letters each of which has four different varieties, not counting ligatures!). I am now Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Cambridge. 

James' book list on decipherment and lost languages

James Clackson Why did James love this book?

I remember reading this when it first came out and being unable to put it down. The Mayan decipherment is still ongoing, and Michael Coe wrote with the knowledge and expertise of someone on the front line of researchers. The decipherments of Hieroglyphic Egyptian and Linear B are usually told as ‘hero-narratives’, in which one individual’s genius was able to make the breakthrough. This book reminds us that all decipherments are made incrementally, and gives due space to the many different contributions made to a decipherment.

By Michael D. Coe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Breaking the Maya Code as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Third Edition of this classic account of the inside story of one of the major intellectual breakthroughs of our time - the last great decipherment of an ancient script - revised and brought right up to date with the latest developments. 113 illustrations bring to life the people and texts that have enabled us to read the Maya script. The original edition, which sold over 40,000 copies in English, was hailed as 'a masterpiece that transcends the boundaries between academic and popular writing'. 'Coe's thrilling account of the cracking of Mayan is like a detective story ... great stuff'…


Book cover of Mimbres Lives and Landscapes

Stephen H. Lekson Author Of A History of the Ancient Southwest

From my list on southwestern archaeology.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was Curator of Archaeology at the Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, Boulder; recently retired.  Before landing at the University of Colorado, I held research, curatorial, or administrative positions with the University of Tennessee, Eastern New Mexico University, National Park Service Chaco Project, Arizona State Museum, Museum of New Mexico, and Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.  Over four decades, I directed more than 20 archaeological projects throughout the Southwest. I wrote a dozen books, chapters in many edited volumes, and scores of articles in journals and magazines. While many of these were technical treatises, I also tried to write scholarly books accessible to normal intelligent readers.  

Stephen's book list on southwestern archaeology

Stephen H. Lekson Why did Stephen love this book?

My archaeological career began in 1971 in the Mimbres region of Southwestern New Mexico. I continued to work in the area, on and off, until 2013. Along the way, I wrote four books and many chapters/articles about Mimbres, and I formed some strong opinions on ancient Mimbres history.

Centered in the Mimbres River valley, the Mimbres built about twenty sizable stone villages at the same time as Chaco Canyon, from 1000 to 1125. Their towns were notably large for the time, fueled by sophisticated canal irrigation (probably adopted from the Hohokam, see above). But Mimbres is most famous for its remarkable black-on-white pottery: artfully-painted bowl interiors show bugs, fish, antelopes, birds, and people – people doing things, tableaus of daily life, esoteric rituals, mythical events. These images appeal strongly to us, today. In ancient times, however, Mimbres bowls and Mimbres art seems to have been limited to the Mimbres region…

By Margaret C. Nelson (editor), Michelle Hegmon (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mimbres Lives and Landscapes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

People have called the mountains, rolling hills, wide valleys, and broad desert plains of southwestern New Mexico home for at least ten thousand years. When they began to farm a little over two thousand years ago, they settled near the rich soils in the river floodplains. Then, around 900, the people of this region burned all of their kivas and started gathering in large villages with small ritual spaces and open plazas. Between 900 and about 1100, they also made the intricately painted geometric and figurative bowls today called Mimbres, their best-known legacy. Then, in the 1130s, they stopped making…


Book cover of A History of Archaeological Thought

Tim Murray Author Of From Antiquarian to Archaeologist: The History and Philosophy of Archaeology

From my list on the history and philosophy of archaeology.

Why am I passionate about this?

Tim Murray has been a leading exponent of the history and philosophy of archaeology for the past thirty years. He has used the history of the discipline to explore the nature of archaeological theory and the many complex intersections between archaeology and society. Of his many publications flowing from this general project, the award-winning global scale five-volume Encyclopedia of Archaeology, the single volume global history of Archaeology Milestones in Archaeology. Murray is a global leader in applying studies in the history of archaeology to the reform of archaeological theory. This is evidenced by the publication of a collection of his essays, From Antiquarian to Archaeologist, and his numerous academic papers on the subject.

Tim's book list on the history and philosophy of archaeology

Tim Murray Why did Tim love this book?

In its original edition, Bruce Trigger's book was the first ever to examine the history of archaeological thought from medieval times to the present in worldwide perspective.

Now, in this new edition, he both updates the original work and introduces new archaeological perspectives and concerns. At once stimulating and even-handed, it places the development of archaeological thought and theory throughout within a broad social and intellectual framework.

The successive but interacting trends apparent in archaeological thought are defined and the author seeks to determine the extent to which these trends were a reflection of the personal and collective interests of archaeologists as these relate - in the West at least - to the fluctuating fortunes of the middle classes.

While subjective influences have been powerful, Professor Trigger argues that the gradual accumulation of archaeological data has exercised a growing constraint on interpretation.

In turn, this has increased the objectivity of…

By Bruce G. Trigger,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A History of Archaeological Thought as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In its original edition, Bruce Trigger's book was the first ever to examine the history of archaeological thought from medieval times to the present in world-wide perspective. Now, in this new edition, he both updates the original work and introduces new archaeological perspectives and concerns. At once stimulating and even-handed, it places the development of archaeological thought and theory throughout within a broad social and intellectual framework. The successive but interacting trends apparent in archaeological thought are defined and the author seeks to determine the extent to which these trends were a reflection of the personal and collective interests of…


Book cover of Redeeming the Reclusive Earl

Rose Prendeville Author Of Mistress Mackintosh and the Shaw Wretch

From my list on smart, feisty heroines not cowed by social mores.

Why am I passionate about this?

When we were young and naughty, our parents only had to give my sister The Look, and she’d burst into tears. Me, I would stare right back at them and demand, “What?” Fiercely. In fact I often got in trouble for “arguing,” (when all I was really trying to do was make my case because I felt misunderstood). These days people describe me as someone who doesn’t care what other people think. I forge my own path, staunchly, proudly, and so I am drawn to heroines who do the same, who fly in the face of societal expectations to fight for truth and science and what is right.

Rose's book list on smart, feisty heroines not cowed by social mores

Rose Prendeville Why did Rose love this book?

I was taken by this book from the moment I read the description. An intrepid archaeologist and fossil hunter trespassing on the lands of a hermit who literally wants her to get off his lawn? What could possibly go wrong! In Effie we have another heroine who is interested in science, knows her own biology, and is quite willing to explore it with the right sort of man. She’s a virgin, but she’s not a wilting young flower. She’s more of a curious pragmatist. In Max we have another damaged hero, and oh my goodness I am a sucker for a hero with terrible events in his past which have left him with physical scars as well as mental ones. I also love a good grumpy sunshine trope.

By Virginia Heath,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Redeeming the Reclusive Earl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

His heart is a fortress.

And she's trespassing!

After losing all he holds dear in a horrific fire, Max Aldersley, Earl of Rivenhall, shuns the world - until he catches Effie Nithercott digging holes on his estate! He banishes the intrepid archaeologist and the disturbing feelings she rouses within him. But she returns even more determined and infuriatingly desirable than before! He's determined she'll never reach the man beneath the scars...no matter how deep she digs!


Book cover of Tunnels

Kevin Moran Author Of Lying Beneath

From my list on fiction books set in underground worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been writing fiction for as long as I can remember, but more formally for over a decade. I have published a variety of works from short-story collections to children’s books, and my latest is a science-fiction trilogy set in an underground world. I’m passionate about imagination and creativity, and love exploring different kinds of books and different ways of expressing similar ideas.

Kevin's book list on fiction books set in underground worlds

Kevin Moran Why did Kevin love this book?

Another overlooked book because it is targeted for children. It’s the first in a series and is darker in tone than others. The imagination of the underground world here is neat and built in such a way that lets you envision it. The plot can be a bit disjointed for younger readers, and there are some twists to keep it interesting, but overall, is a fast read.

By Roderick Gordon, Brian Williams,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Tunnels as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Fourteen-year-old Will Burrows lives with his family in London. He
has little in common with them except for a passion for digging
which he shares with his father.

When his father suddenly disappears down an unknown tunnel, Will
decides to investigate with his friend Chester. Soon they find themselves
deep underground, where they unearth a dark and terrifying
secret - a secret which may cost them their lives.


Book cover of Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia's Afar Depression

Sergio Almécija Author Of Humans: Perspectives on Our Evolution from World Experts

From my list on the big picture of human nature and evolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have researched human origins professionally for almost decades by studying the trail of fossils that have survived millions of years. But, before then, and since I can remember, I’ve been a lover of adventure and science fiction stories in all formats: action movies (Indiana Jones, Back to the Future), TV shows (The X Files), novels (Jack London!), or anime and manga (Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Alita). So, I guess my mind constantly travels from the past to the future. I think this list will also work as a time machine for others.

Sergio's book list on the big picture of human nature and evolution

Sergio Almécija Why did Sergio love this book?

Reading this book is like watching an adventure movie on a Sunday afternoon on the couch. But it’s not a movie; it actually happened. The late author, a recognized geologist, recounts his personal biography during the 1970s, exploring the Afar region of Ethiopia and searching for the earliest human ancestors.

The “plot” involves the US government, spy accusations, funny stories about personalities in the field, and one of the “game changers” in paleoanthropology: The discovery of “Lucy,” the skeleton of a tiny female of Australopithecus afarensis that lived more than 3 million years ago. Knowing some of the personalities mentioned in the book, the pages flew in front of my face, and I effortlessly read it in no time.

By Jon Kalb,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Adventures in the Bone Trade as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Over the past 25 years, a stream of fossil and artifact discoveries in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia has produced the longest single record of human ancestors in the world. Many of the fossils found in this region are the missing links leading to modern humans. This book chronicles the exploration of this unique desert area, focusing especially on the 1970s when the valley was mapped and many fossils and archeological sites were discovered. The author gives his personal account of the 25 years he spent researching the region.
As co-founder of the team that discovered Lucy, Jon Kalb has…


Book cover of Image and Exploration: Early Travel Photography from 1850 to 1914
Book cover of Over Vales and Hills: The Illustrated Poetry of the Natural World
Book cover of Lost London 1870-1945

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