Thursday, September 8, 2016

The Star Trek Book by Dorling Kindersley Publishing

Happy 50th Anniversary of Star Trek's first airing!

The Star Trek Book
by the editors at Dorling Kindersley [ On Order ] 

This Star Trek themed entry in publisher Dorling Kindersley’s “Big Ideas Simply Explained” series (humorously subtitled “Strange New Worlds – Boldly Explained!”), is a marvelous look back at 50 years worth of Star Trek history here in the 50th anniversary year. Dorling Kindersley as a publisher is particularly known for its beautiful and extensive illustrations, and this entry is no exception. Every significant character in Trek history has a detailed profile, with multiple photos, background information, statistics, etc. Similarly, all the “worlds” and “alien species” introduced in everything from Classic Star Trek to Enterprise get their due. This is a wonderful introduction to the underpinnings of Star Trek for anyone who doesn’t know much about it, or who is only a marginal fan. My only complaint is that they didn’t have room to provide full episode guides and movie descriptions for the 700+ hours of Star Trek that has been produced for both small and big-screen enjoyment. But there are many other resources for finding that kind of information — instead, The Star Trek Book is a beautiful “snapshot” of a pop culture phenomenon, that you can read at your leisure, without having to worry about having an internet connection.

[ On a marginally-related note, I do recommend the other non-Trek volumes in DK’s “Big Ideas Simply Explained” series. I personally have purchased the Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare volumes, but they have many more, on broad topics such as History, Psychology, Philosophy, Economics, Sociology, Religion, Business and more.] [ Publisher’s official The Star Trek Book web page ] | [ The Star Trek Book entry at Memory Alpha ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

No comments: