The Reading Page

Recommended By: The Hartmans

Books on Lakes

Good books on lakes are hard to find. An excellent book about lakes in general is The Natural History of Lakes, which unfortunately is out of print. By chance, there was a copy on eBay.

A recent coffee-table book is Maine Lakes, which contains an essay on one person's account of the lake experience as well as some original photography. Great for fueling memories of Lakeville while wintering away.

Website readers may have some other recommendations. If so, please share.

Maine Lakes
by Christopher Barnes (Photographer), Sarah Stiles Bright

List Price: $40 ($28 through Amazon)

Product Details

Hardcover: 128 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.58 x 10.40 x 10.28

Publisher: Tilbury House Publishers; 1st edition (July 2002)

ISBN: 0884482448

Average Customer Review: Based on 1 review.

Editorial Reviews
Down East Magazine, December 2002
"...a beautiful coffee-table book intended to inspire introspection and reverence for the landscape's most expressive feature."

Bangor Daily News, October 21, 2002
"...this volume heightens our appreciation of the beauty and diversity of a special freshwater habitat."

Book Description
"A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is the earth’s eye, looking into which we measure the depth of our own nature," wrote Thoreau. Generations of Americans have enjoyed, celebrated, and been rejuvenated by Maine’s lakes—our densely forested, lake-speckled state contains over 6,000 bodies of water larger than one acre, 2,800 of which are designated "great ponds."

With luminous color photographs, thoughtful essays, and a sprinkling of quotes, Maine Lakes invites you to revisit your freshwater childhood memories, to appreciate the beauty and recreation our lakes offer, and to learn what’s being done to preserve this valuable and precious resource. Steeped in reflections of Barnes’s and Bright’s own personal experiences, Maine Lakes, in images and words, touches on what is universally remarkable about our human interaction with the landscape: it needs to be tenderly stewarded while, at the same time, it sustains and heals us.

And What Great Lakes They Are, November 21, 2002

  Reviewer: A reader from Washington, DC

For anyone who enjoys the sparkle of sun on water, the haunting cry of a loon, or the reflection of fall colors and blue sky, this book is an outstanding reminder of the importance of healthy lakes to healthy human communities. Barnes and Bright invite us into their perspective of Maine's fresh water lakes with an intimacy that reveals the personal connections they both feel for these places. This book is filled with striking photographs and powerful imagery of the beautiful lure of Maine's lakes. An excellent book.