New Field Guide - "How To Identify Night Sky"

I don't know how long it has been on the streets, and I'm sure someone's
already mentioned it here, but I think I just found my next favorite field
guide -- "How To Identify Night Sky" (Storm Dunlop and Wil Tirion) on the
astro shelf at the local Barnes & Noble. It's got a clear plastic cover,
and the heavy pages have a nice feel to them. A little while back someone
here was asking for a decent field guide. The print and the pages are a
little bigger than the Peterson guide and it seems a little more "current"
than the St. Martin's Press Night Sky guide. I just bought the thing so I
haven't had a chance to read it yet, but for $10 you can't go wrong!

Regards,
-- Mark

Mark Lepkowski
http://www.mcltunes.com

Mark Lepkowski:
I don't know how long it has been on the streets, and I'm sure someone's
already mentioned it here, but I think I just found my next favorite field
guide -- "How To Identify Night Sky" (Storm Dunlop and Wil Tirion)...

Who needs it? I can "identify night sky" just by going outside after
sundown and before sunup and looking up. "Yep, that's night sky,
alright!" ;-)

Seriously, though, folks, I don't know anything about Storm Dunlop, but
I know that Wil Tirion is a bit of a perfectionist, and I am quite
surprised that he would publish a book under the jarringly incorrect
title "How to Identify Night Sky." It should be "How to Identify Things
in the Night Sky." Even if he is happy with a clumsy title, it needs to
be "How to Identify _the_ Night Sky" -- unless, of course, the entire
content of the book is, in fact, "Go outside after sundown and before
sunup and look up. That's night sky." More likely the publisher slipped
that in on him -- literacy doesn't seem to be a necessary qualification
to work in the publishing industry any longer.

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

Seriously, though, folks, I don't know anything about Storm Dunlop, but
I know that Wil Tirion is a bit of a perfectionist, and I am quite
surprised that he would publish a book under the jarringly incorrect
title "How to Identify Night Sky."


The cover does indeed say "How to Identify Night Sky"...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/00...1.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

-Florian

While reading in the bathroom on Tue, 1 Jun 2004 22:21:01 -0700, I saw
that "Florian" had written:

The cover does indeed say "How to Identify Night Sky"...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/00...1.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

It's part of a series called "How to Identify..."



--------------
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Davoud:
...I know that Wil Tirion is a bit of a perfectionist, and I am quite
surprised that he would publish a book under the jarringly incorrect
title "How to Identify Night Sky..."


John Beaderstadt:
It's part of a series called "How to Identify..."

That makes no difference, and it doesn't excuse the incorrect title.
The title of a book -- especially a work of non-fiction -- must stand
on its own; one shouldn't be required to know anything else in order to
understand it.

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

OK, now that it's been decided that the title should be different, Is the
book any good?

F Marion

OK, now that it's been decided that the title should be different, Is the
book any good?


I glanced at the close up pages on Amazon.com. Looked rather nice to me as
entry level guide book. I might buy it. I'm a sucker for star books. I have
another Collins/Tirion book, a little tiny 3"x4" or so, that i use
sometimes.

-Florian

While reading in the bathroom on Wed, 02 Jun 2004 09:08:47 -0400, I
saw that Davoud had written:

John Beaderstadt:
It's part of a series called "How to Identify..."

That makes no difference, and it doesn't excuse the incorrect title.
The title of a book -- especially a work of non-fiction -- must stand
on its own; one shouldn't be required to know anything else in order to
understand it.

So, what is there about the title that confuses you? It seems
perfectly plain to me; it's a book about how to identify what you see
in the night sky. Since we are speaking of a book title, and neither
conversational nor formal grammar, the rules are slightly different.
Without leaving the room where I'm typing this, I can find several
examples which belie your opinion.

Just looking around my bookshelf, should Sagan have named it "The Pale
Blue Dot," or "The Cosmos"? Then, there's Michael Light's "Full Moon;"
are you saying it should have been "The Full Moon"? There's another
called "Challenge to Apollo;" should it have been "The Challenge to
the Apollo"? BTW, my copy of Rukl is titled "Atlas of the Moon." Are
you saying it should be "The (or An) Atlas of the Moon"? If not, why
not?

Why haven't you complained about all these other "incorrect" titles?
Or are you selective and arbitrary about what you call correct and
incorrect? If the latter, isn't that a bit hypocritical, demanding
consistency and adherence to the rules in others while permitting
inconsistency and sloppiness for yourself?



--------------
Beady's Corollary to Occam's Razor: "The likeliest explanation of any phenomenon is almost always the most boring one imaginable."


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Davoud wrote:
That makes no difference, and it doesn't excuse the incorrect title.
The title of a book -- especially a work of non-fiction -- must stand
on its own; one shouldn't be required to know anything else in order to
understand it.

I don't like any of John's examples, but your "rule" here seems
overwhelmingly too restrictive. I too would have preferred How to
Identify the Night Sky, but How to Identify Things in the Night Sky
just doesn't flow.

Aside from being memorable, I don't place too many constraints on book
titles. I do place many constraints on book contents.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

"Davoud" wrote in message
...
Mark Lepkowski:
I don't know how long it has been on the streets, and I'm sure someone's
already mentioned it here, but I think I just found my next favorite
field
guide -- "How To Identify Night Sky" (Storm Dunlop and Wil Tirion)...

Who needs it? I can "identify night sky" just by going outside after
sundown and before sunup and looking up. "Yep, that's night sky,
alright!" ;-)

Seriously, though, folks, I don't know anything about Storm Dunlop, but
I know that Wil Tirion is a bit of a perfectionist, and I am quite
surprised that he would publish a book under the jarringly incorrect
title "How to Identify Night Sky." It should be "How to Identify Things
in the Night Sky." Even if he is happy with a clumsy title, it needs to
be "How to Identify _the_ Night Sky" -- unless, of course, the entire
content of the book is, in fact, "Go outside after sundown and before
sunup and look up. That's night sky." More likely the publisher slipped
that in on him -- literacy doesn't seem to be a necessary qualification
to work in the publishing industry any longer.


Interestingly, when you search for the book at Amazon, it comes up as "How
to Identify *the* Night Sky" (emphasis mine)
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...1086212177/sr=
8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-4354141-2519815?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).
So even though the cover may say "How to Identify Night Sky", it's proper
title seems to include the word "the". Searching the ISBN through Google
shows lots of websites carrying the book using the "the" title. Even the
publisher's website uses the word "the"
http://www.collins.co.uk/books/default.aspx?id=30445