by Tom Hamilton
Hot Air Balloons
The book jacket says, "Hot
air balloons capture the hearts of viewers like no other flying machines.
Their beauty and grace combine to weave a spell over onlookers, holding
people transfixed to these visions in the sky until the floating craft have
passed, leaving those on the ground to marvel at their color, construction,
and effortless wafting over hills and treetops."
With that idea in mind Friedman/Fairfax Publishers, New York, New York, set out to produce a modern coffee table book about the sport of ballooning. The publishers contacted numerous potential writers in the ballooning community before selecting frequent Balloon Life contributors Christine Kalakuka and her partner Brent Stockwell to write the text.
Christine and Brent drew on their more than 60 years of combined balloon experience to write the chapters covering: A Brief History of Ballooning; Type of Balloons; Going for a Ride; Inflation, Flying, and Landing; Balloon Events; Competition Flying; and Records and Challenges.
For modern history of ballooning the authors went to the source himself, Ed Yost, and spent weeks talking with him at his home in the mountains of New Mexico.
The books has many beauty photographs from around the world, most from stock photo houses.
The book even includes recent around the world balloon attempts through the winter of 1996-1997.
The oversized hardback book is 128 pages and retails for $27.50. The book is available in bookstores now. Copies may also be ordered from Balloon Publishing Company by calling 510-261-4222 or email: balpub@vdn.com.
Hangar Talk
Throughout its history, flying
has captivated imaginations, especially for the many who have made flying
their passion as well as their career. Hangar Talk explores the world
of flight from the most compelling vantage pointthat of the pilots themselves.
Through extensive interviews with hundreds of men and women, Irv Broughton has collected the compelling stories of each of these individuals from the early days of biplanes to ventures into space. While none of his interviews are with lighter-than-air pilots, anyone interested in aviation will enjoy these first hand accounts of flying.
The range of experience runs from war, barnstorming, Alaska bush, to space. Each interview taking you on a new aviation adventure. There is no better way to get inside an experience than through the point of view of those who have participated in it. The more than 30 first person accounts capture pure aviation.
Hangar Talk, 512 pages, $35, is available from University of Washington Press, PO Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145-5096, 1-800-441-4115.
Up, Up & Away
Calendars are a perennially popular
gifteverybody needs at least one. Cedco Publishing Company has produced
a balloon calendar in an oversize 12 by 12 inch, 12 by 24 inch unfolded,
format. Top half contains the always beautiful balloon picture. The bottom
half has a very generous area for each day of the month. Plenty of room
to write in all the important events on your calendar.
Up, Up & Away, $11.95, is available now at gift, book and stationery stores nationwide, by calling 1-800-233-2624, or on the Internet at http://www.cedco.com/.
