Visions of Mulu 60 million years in the making
Text By Brian Clark; Design & Layout Sue Clark – (2010)
161 pages; gloss art paper, with 141 colour photographs, 11 monochrome photographs, 28 technical colour illustrations, 4 colour explanatory maps, 12 monochrome cave maps & 2 tables.
Hard Cover: 25.6cm x 30cm.
ISBN: 978-983-812-131-6
Natural History Publications (Borneo) Kota Kinabalu & Borsarmulu Park Management Sarawak Malaysia.
Very aptly titled, this superbly illustrated book is a mere glimpse into the beauty of the ‘World Heritage Listed’ Mulu National Park and its amazing limestone cave systems that have taken millions of years to evolve – which all up run for hundreds of kilometers.
This is an almost coffee table style ‘first class’ book combing visual excellence with sound text. The books emphasis is on the discovery and preliminary exploration of the world’s greatest cave system and its internal and adjoining fauna and flora.
The photos and their print reproduction in this book are simply ‘world first class’ and some are so good words cannot really begin to describe their magnificence. Many of them being full page blow ups with a couple even and quite spectacularly double paged. This book is predominantly a design of visual enticement drawing one quite successfully into the realms of the Mulu dream land through rather large sized very high quality colour photos. Although the text is minimal and mainly relevant to the rock formations and evolution of these amazing cave systems, it is still highly informative and combined with the photos of its fauna and flora (including illuminous mushrooms, spectacular birds, brilliantly coloured and camouflaged insects and much more) leaves one in awe of this amazing place.
This book will not only dumbfound and delight any and all naturalists – but anyone who reads this book will be astonished by the mere selection depicted here of Sarawak’s forests, fauna and flora, rock formations and the world’s greatest natural cave systems. This book and the almost “3D – life like” incredible photos in it are merely a tantalizing taste and representative of the many hidden jewels we are still only just discovering and know little about in other special places such as Mulu from around the globe. This ‘top notch’ book should not only be on the book shelves of all naturalists, it should also be in all school libraries so current and future generations can visualize and almost see and feel first hand through these amazing photos the endless beauty of our planet and why all habitats, fauna and flora are worth conserving.
Rod Rice
Principal Reviewer
Nature & Travel Books