People of the Ice Whale: Eskimos, White...

People of the Ice Whale: Eskimos, White Men, and the Whale, David & Boeri (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). An analysis of the survival of the bowhead whale, the Eskimos who hunt them and the bureaucracies that intervene.

Herculaneum: Italy’s Buried Treasure, Joseph Jay Deiss (Harper & Row). A guide to the inundated city, its restoration and the work still to be done.

Unknown California, edited by Jonathan Eisen and David Fine with Kim Eisen (Collier). Collection of essays--from John Muir to Norman Mailer--captures the state’s history, its varied life styles and the people’s hopes for the future.

Why Time Begins on Opening Day, Thomas Boswell (Penguin). Sports journalist tells the stories about the players, the managers and the fans.

Deep Ecology, edited by Michael Tobias (Avant). Essays, memoirs and poems seeking to find some answers to the balance needed to survive with nature, rather than without.

The American Railroad Passenger Car, John H. White Jr. (Johns Hopkins University). Two painstakingly researched and amply illustrated volumes tell the whole story of travel by rail.