From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years With National Geographic

By Thomas Canby

Book Overview

National Geographic has been called a window on the world and a passport to adventure. Each month an estimated forty million people in 190 countries open its pages and are transported to exotic realms... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559635177
• ISBN13: 9781559635172
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Island Press
• Length: 271 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

An deftly written, engrossing, armchair tour of the world

Tom Canby had the great good fortune of working for the National Geographic during that wonderful time when all the big glossy magazines and high-circulation newspapers were willing to spend money to bring information to their readers. This willingness to to be serious about news coverage gave this deft and sensitive writer the chance to roam the world and take the time necessary to cover his beat (science) in depth and with a thoroughness almost unheard of today, when even great institutions like National Geographic are nickel-and-diming to cut costs. From Botswana to the Bering Sea is the personal memoir of a gentle man and a gentleman. Canby would probably be the first to admit (as he, in fact, alludes in his book) that he is not the stereotype of the hardbitten tabloid news reporter. Instead he is an essayist of uncommon grace. This is a wonderful book.

Wonderful Reading

This is not a review but an urgent request to find the most recent book published by Thomas Y. Canby, Sandy Spring Legacy. This is the legacy of a Quaker Village and tells the story of one of the oldest towns in the Maryland Piedmont, settled by the Quakers and others in the early 1700's. I am interested in finding this book as I once lived in this little Quaker Village forty years ago. Thank you for any leads you may have.

Canby hits the mark for National Geographic fans.

If you like reading National Geographic, then you'll like reading Thomas Canby's book about his 30 years with the yellow border magazine. He recounts some of his favorite assignments, including glimpses behind the scenes, and the occasional personal note. My favorite is the rat assignment. After a day of chasing rats, he settles down for a few beers. After getting a good buzz, the fried rats are served and he and his friends dig in with gusto. Later, in writing the actual article, Canby details the rat feast but somehow fails to mention the beer.Canby is an unabashed lover of National Geographic, making a number of references to the positive aspects of working for the magazine and the envy with which other writers view a National Geographic assignment. So, don't expect any revelations about the inner workings of the Society beyond those already published. Criticisms of management and the editorial staff are mild, and generally take the form of disagreement. The book does provide interesting insight into how story content was sometimes influenced by "mossbacks" on the Board of Trustees. There is also a brief but blistering appraisal of former editor John Oliver LaGorce, but this only reiterates and reinforces previous reports.All in all, National Geographic fans will find this book a good middle-of-the-road look at how things work within the magazine. Canby does a pinch of bashing, a bushel of praising, and a ton of good old story writing-all in the National Geographic style.