Treasured Lands: A Photographic Odyssey Through America's National Parks, Second Expanded Edition

If you are going to own or gift only one book about the National Parks, this is the one. Treasured Lands offers a blend of gorgeous photographs, extensive geographic coverage, and practical information not found in any other book. Even at the full price of $65 it would represent an exceptional value for a 480-page coffee-table book produced to the highest standards. I own a shelf of books about the National Parks, and this is by far the best in my collection. Read on to understand why.There are more great pictures than in any other book, generally printed big on a full page. They are amazing as you'd expect from a celebrated photographer who has worked for the last quarter-century in the National Parks, visiting each of them five times on average to capture the best light and seasons. They are carefully selected to let you discover not only the diversity of the National Parks as a whole, but also the diversity within each of the National Parks. The author illustrates the lesser-known National Parks, often passed over in other books, with at least five pictures. He introduces each National Park very well by pointing out the natural history facts that make it unique.A few coffee-table books in my collection contain equally great photography, but after feeling inspired to visit the places pictured, I often found myself perplexed about their locations. Some of those books do not even include captions. By contrast, for each picture, Treasured Lands provides at least a paragraph identifying the location and how to get there, and also frequently explains how the author got the picture - like following a master photographer and looking behind his shoulder. This is a feature that I have not seen in any other National Park book.There is more first-hand information than in any other photography book. Given how unobtrusive the text is, at first I didn’t realize its extent, which is the equal of a guidebook. Treasured Lands rewards a careful repeated reading if you are inclined so, but otherwise you could spend hours just thumbing through the amazing pictures. I have only two (small) reservations. First, the information is printed with a tiny font hard on my aging eyes. Second, it is so useful for planning that I would have loved to take it along on my trips, but Treasured Lands being such a lavish coffee-table book, I am not sure I want to toss it in my truck!Finally, the value. I do not understand how an obscure publisher can offer the book at this price, since they do not have the economies of scale of the likes of National Geographic - and by the way, Treasured Lands easily outclasses any of the National Geographic efforts on this topic. You may think it is expensive, but when compared with the other books I own, Treasured Lands offers at least twice as much contents, of higher quality, for not much more money. I would have paid twice as much for what is the definitive work on the National Parks. It is a massive tome, almost 8 lbs, gorgeously designed and printed. All my friends were mightily impressed. I plan to give out many this holiday!

I wrote a review of “Treasured Lands” and then decided that I had been so long-winded that almost nobody would have the patience to read it all. Accordingly, I decided to submit both a Short Version and a Long Version of my review – and even the Long Version has been cut almost in half. FWIW, Amazon delivered my copy only a few days ago, so there is undoubtedly much more that I have yet to discover.The Short Version: STUNNING – BUY IT! Buy a copy for yourself and buy copies as gifts!The Long Version: This is a stunning book. “Treasured Lands” is not just a stunning book of photographs of scenery within our National Parks; it is a book that I find stunning from every aspect from which I have looked at it.The photography is excellent, and the author has spent a large part of his adult life taking superb photos in every single National Park of the United States. Here you will find images of sweeping scenery and of intimate locations that you might walk past if you were not paying attention. Here you will find images from locations in parks like Yellowstone that are on the bucket lists of many, many people, and images from locations like the National Park of American Samoa that distance means most of us will never visit. Here you will find images from iconic locations within familiar parks, and images from almost unknown jewel-like scenes within the same parks.But “Treasured Lands” is much more than that. The author has provided maps to help you find the locations within the parks from which the photos were taken, and descriptions of how to get to those locations. Many photos talk about the time of day that was needed to capture the image. None of this is unique, and I have books of excellent photos from places like Yosemite that do the same thing in even greater depth – for THAT specific park. But none of those books have done the same thing for *every single National Park in the United States*! This book is 457 pages long, which allows the author to cover the parks in greater depth than any of the other multi-park books that I have seen.But all of this still does not begin to do justice to “Treasured Lands”. The text that accompanies the photos also provides the reader with a rich experience in other regards. If you want to know more about a given park, information is there - in clear and useful text. With text that ranges from the eco-system of Olympia to the geology of Bryce, you will end up with no excuse for saying, “I’m not sure if I will find anything interesting other than pretty scenery if I go to that particular park”.Another area that I found stunning was the sheer value of the book. I have other books of landscape and other photography that are a fraction the size of “Treasured Lands”, for which I paid comparable prices – or more – and felt were good value. The content is superb, and the production values of the book are excellent. FWIW, I am putting my money where my mouth is – I have already ordered three additional copies from the author – all autographed.My comments above probably make me sound like one of the “fanboys” about which snide remarks are frequently made on the web these days. I am 76 years old (and a fan of the National Parks), so I don’t think that any form of the word “boy” other than “old” is applicable to me. However, I will add that when I look at the glowing endorsement on the book cover that Ken Burns has given QT Luong and “Treasured Lands”, I feel comfortable in believing that my opinion still has validity.

I have more than a dozen photography books that focus on America's National Parks, and this book is far and away the best photography book ever published about America's National Parks. Starting with the photographs themselves, they are simply amazing! I really appreciate that Mr. Luong included a description of the location where each photograph was taken and added tips about what time of day other photographers should be at those locations to capture similar photographs (although I doubt many could even come close to Mr. Luong's photographs). The book itself is high quality; high quality paper, strong binding; and very large, beautiful color prints. Lastly the price. I can't believe the price was only $40. I would have paid triple the price to add this book to my collection. Bottom line: whether you love America's National Parks or just love landscape photography, you must have this book. If you're planning a trip to any National Park and you plan to take a camera, you should definitely have this book. I will use it before every National Park trip.

A superb voyage through America's best idea. Photos good to brilliant but never poor. Printing fine but not superlative. As value for money- excellent Get it!

This isn't just the finest book of photographs of the National Parks out there, it stands among the very best books of landscape photography I've ever seen. Beautifully bound, and printed on gorgeous paper, every detail excels. Absolutely fantastic - buy it at once!

This unbelievably affordable book is a marvel. A must for all the lovers of US national and state parks and those who would love them if they knewWe bought a second book for a christmas gift

Amazing photography and the eBook in combination is essential for any park visitor

True to form, this first rate coffe-table book captivates the reader with class A photographs. What makes for a welcome change in this type of picture books is that "Treasured Lands" comes with eloquently written and detailed text of considerable quantity. For each image, photographer Luong shares highly useful information on location, lighting conditions, access, personal experiences and the like, which practically invites - and enables - the reader/viewer to go check out these places themselves.What I do feel compelled to point out in terms of negative criticism, though, is the fact that the entire chapter "Eastern Hardwoods" (chaptrer V) has been printed a second time and thus comes up again three pages into chapter VI ("Alaska"), before the latter chapter comes in full size. What's more, in this mixup, the sub-chapter "Gates of the Artic" has been entirely lost except for the first page. This is a shame given that this is the second edition of "Treasured Lands". Did no one notice this major error in the first edition or did it happen only in the second edition? Anyway, this is the main reason, why I rate the book with 4 stars instead of 5. A second, minor one, is that I find the photos about Yellowstone NP, a signature park for most people, rather mediocre compared to the glittering rendering of other parks.Neverhteless, apart from these two aspects, buyers of this must-see/must-read will not be disappointed but delighted by 3.5kg/7.7lb of visually stunning and highly informative pages!