Survey Books - not textbooks

Check this book out rather interesting but not written for just a survey audience.

The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped and Everest Was Named
By:John Keay

The Chainbearer

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon - a long, awkward book, but interresting.

http://www.kaps1.com/store/

The Kentucky Association of Professional Surveyors has published two books that I think should be in everybody's library.

Four Steps West is a great looking book about the creation of the Kentucky/Tennessee line full of stories like "I kilt the bar that kilt me". Great book and absolutely fascinating. The line was supposed to be straight but is not for a variety of reasons. Surveying the way it was.

Case Law for Boundary Issues is more in line with textbooks, but I don't know of any college courses teaching it yet. This is great resource to have in your office and an interesting read. Some of the existing case law opinions are surprising sometimes.

“The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think that science can do anything and those who are afraid it will.”
? Thomas Pynchon, Mason and Dixon

"Memoir from Antproof Case" by Mark Helprin has an amusing surveying scene about breaking into a bank using directional drilling...

This is one of my favorite books, along with A soldier of the Great War by Helprin.

An apt description of Mr. Pynchon's writing, that: Awkward. Nonetheless he remains mostly worth the investment. And let's not forget my favorite sort of book (that being written for younger minds): CARRY ON MR. BOWDITCH, a favorite of all my children except my eldest daughter, who was far too sensitive to handle, in her words, "everyone dying."

The Lost Monument
By Carl Louis Kingsbury
Published by David C. Cook Publishing Co.
Elgin, Ill.

DDSM:beer:

Great Surveys of the American West

I have the following in my stack of "to read" but haven't started it yet. From a quick perusal it looks very interesting. (to me, at least)

http://books.google.com/books/about/Great_Surveys_of_the_American_West.html?id=Usu6gIwit3sC

Have a great week! B-)

Too Far North....Too Far South - by Odie B. Faulk
controversial boundary survey and epic story of the Gadsden Purchase.
I think someone here recommended it a few years back.
as a surveyor living in Arizona, it was a good read.

One of my favorites being an Oregonian Land Surveyor...
"Nimrod: Courts, Claims, and Killing on the Oregon Frontier" By Ronald B. Lansing.

Measuring America is a great read!

I am going to have to read "Memoir from Antproof Case".

http://www.mwpubco.com/titles/chainingoregon.htm

“Chaining Oregon” is the first comprehensive history of the early surveyors of the Pacific Northwest and the work they performed for the US General Land Office between 1851 and 1855. When Surveyor General John B. Preston and his cadre of engineers, including William Ives, Butler Ives, James Freeman, and George Hyde, arrived in the Oregon Territory in 1851, there was little precedent for the legal systematic description of private landholding. When the last of these surveyors left in 1855, the western interior valleys of the territory from Puget Sound to the Oregon-California border lay measured in the precise pattern of townships and sections that characterized the US Rectangular System.

by Kay Atwood

I assume your mention of Drawing the Line is in reference to the book by Edwin Danson. There is another book with the same title by Mark Monmonier about maps and "cartocontroversy."

The Fabric of America: How Our Borders and Boundaries Shaped the Country and Forged Our National Identity by Andro Linklater (Author of Measuring America)

A History of the Rectangular Survey System by C. Albert White

The Mapmaker’s Eye by Jack Nisbet

They Left Their Mark by John S. Burt

A. Lincoln with Compass and Chain by Adin Baber

Surveys and Surveyors of the Public Domain by Lola Cazier

Lasting Impressions: A Glimpse into the Legacy of Surveying by Rhonda L. Rushing (Berntsen International)

Latitude by Stephen Pumfrey

Deep Sea, High Mountain by Elliot Roberts

The Quartzite Border: Surveying and Marking the North Dakota-South Dakota Boundary 1891-1892 by Gordon L. Iseminger

The Land Office Business by Malcolm Rohrbough

Walkin’ the Line by William Ecenbarger

Andrew Ellicott: His Life and Letters by Catharine VanCortlandt Mathews

Measuring the World

Measuring the World Novel based on Gauss and Von Humbolt
It was the best seller in Germany a few years back and was translated to english.
I read it and it was a good read.

There is also a bio of Gauss that details his years surveying

Wow, so many more than I thought. My Amazon wish list just keeps on growing...Keep them coming. Thanks to all who replied

"Memoir from Antproof Case"?!?

The title alone "Memoir from Antproof Case" triggered my “LOOK IT UP NOW” neurons.
$10.08 later it’s now in the electronic “to read” stack.

Overview:
An old American who lives in Brazil is writing his memoirs. An English teacher at the naval academy, he is married to a woman young enough to be his daughter and has a little son whom he loves. He sits in a mountain garden in Niterói, overlooking the ocean. As he reminisces and writes, placing the pages carefully in his antproof case, we learn that he was a World War II ace who was shot down twice, an investment banker who met with popes and presidents, and a man who was never ...
Mark Helprin combines adventure, satire, flights of transcendence, and high comedy in this "memoir" of a man whose life reads like the song of the twentieth century.

Can't wait to read it.

ALCAN not really a book, but an interesting read.

Boundary Hunters: Surveying the 141st Meridian and the Alaska Panhandle [Hardcover]
Lewis Green (Author)

"Footsteps Through the Adirondacks: The Verplanck Colvin Story" by Nina H. Webb.

Interesting bio of the man who basically created the Adirondack Park and the NY State Forest preserve, and untangled scores of land claims in the process.

Also Google Norman Van Valkenburg, who has written numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, dealing with New york State surveying.

Of course, don't forget "The Castle", by Franz Kafka.