Golden Field Guide

The Golden Field Guides are a series of larger pocket-sized books that were created by Western Publishing and published under their "Golden Press" line (mostly used for children's books at the time), as a related series to the Golden Guides. Unlike the Golden Guides, the Field Guide went more in depth, being more aimed at the High-School/College level. They also had sturdier covers, obviously intending that they be used in the field. Most note that they are a "Guide to Field Identification" on the cover. To go more in depth and intended as both identification and educational, most of the Field Guides limited themselves to North America, while the Golden Guides were usually worldwide. Edited by Herbert Zim and Vera Webster, the books were written by experts in their field and illustrated with a simple straightforward style.

The series, updated, was relaunched in 2001 as "Golden Field Guides by St. Martin's Press". Certain titles have been discontinued (such as the Amphibians of North America and Families of Birds books).

Series List

  • Amphibians of North America
  • Birds of North America

Seashells of North America

  • Eastern Birds
  • National Parks of the World volume 1&2
  • Reptiles of North America
  • Rocks & Minerals (renamed Minerals of the World
  • Skyguide (renamed Night Sky)
  • Trees of North America
  • Wildflowers of North America

Famous quotes containing the words golden, field and/or guide:

    He, that holds fast the golden mean,
    And lives contentedly between
    The little and the great,
    Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
    Nor plagues that haunt the rich man’s door,
    Imbitt’ring all his state.
    Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)

    My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
    My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
    My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
    And all my good is but vain hope of gain:
    The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
    And now I live, and now my life is done.
    Chidiock Tichborne (1558–1586)

    In the continual enterprise of trying to guide appropriately, renegotiate with, listen to and just generally coexist with our teenage children, we ourselves are changed. We learn even more clearly what our base-line virtues are. We listen to our teenagers and change our minds about some things, stretching our own limits. We learn our own capacity for flexibility, firmness and endurance.
    —Jean Jacobs Speizer. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Collective, ch. 4 (1978)