The Shorebirds of North America

New York: The Viking Press, 1967. Full tan cloth with brown labels and gilt lettering on spine. Book is in near new condition. The jacket is unprice-clipped ($22.50) and one half inch closed tear a the top of the front panel and another closed tear on the back panel. VERY slight rubbing to the spine. Else EXCELLENT book in VERY GOOD PLUS jacket. Peter Matthiessen (born May 22, 1927 in New York City) is an American naturalist and author of historical fiction and non-fiction. Matthiessen's work is known for its meticulous approach to research. He frequently focuses on American Indian issues and history, as in his detailed study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. Along with George Plimpton, Harold Humes, Thomas Guinzburg and Donald Hall, he founded the literary magazine The Paris Review in 1953. In 1979, his book The Snow Leopard won the Contemporary Thought category of the National Book Award. His novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965), about an American missionary coming to a South American tribe, was made into a major Hollywood movie in 1991. His work on oceanographic research, "Blue Meridian" became the film "Blue Water, White Death," which is widely considered to have inspired Peter Benchley to write "Jaws" in 1974. Matthiessen has been the official State Author of New York, 1995-1997. More recently, Matthiessen's fiction trilogy Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man's River and Bone by Bone was based on accounts of Florida planter Edgar J. Watson's death shortly after the Southwest Florida Hurricane of 1910. Matthiessen became a Zen practitioner and later a Buddhist priest. He lives in Sagaponack, New York. . Full Cloth. Near Fine/Very Good. Illus. by Robert Verity Clem. Folio - over 12" - 15" tall. Hardcover.