The marketing machine for the well known Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks included the production of a companion book. To be fair, the book stands alone and you don’t need to watch the documentary. But you’ll be underwhelmed if all you do is read this book.

I really enjoyed the documentary. Yet the book is a bit too … um … breathy. Everything is “the biggest” or “the first” or possibly “the most important” in the descriptions about the parks. Usually that’s a correct statement. But in a book, it becomes a bit overwhelming. Toward the middle of the book I wanted to shout, “Wait, can’t you talk about at least one ugly, small, meaningless part of the damn parks?”

Still, this is a good read. There are great stories about the National Parks, both historical and personal. Most of us will learn a lot and feel the time invested was worthwhile.

But if you are going to spend time on just one or the other, skip the book and watch the documentary.