Herbert S. Zim

Her­bert Spencer Zim (1909–1994), author of many books and text­books on sci­ence includ­ing the Gold­en Nature guides.

Retired to Plan­ta­tion Key, Flori­da, in the 1960s with his first wife (Sonia Bleek­er), and he died there in Decem­ber 1994 after suf­fer­ing from Alzheimer’s dis­ease. [ny times obit] [long bio] [short bio] [short­er bio] [google] [wikipedia]

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Books

Most of his books in their orig­i­nal edi­tions are col­lectible now, but new edi­tions (revised and updat­ed and with new cov­ers) are in print. For some years (1980s on) the new cov­ers were decid­ed­ly ugly, hav­ing lost the care­ful typog­ra­phy and great full-col­or paint­ings of the orig­i­nals; now the new edi­tions have decid­ed­ly “retro” cov­ers that are care­ful­ly done. Macmil­lan still has an author page for Zim. Some of the books were illus­trat­ed by his friend Ray­mond Perl­man. [tos/astropop/2349189000/”>photo]

[amazonify]1582381283[/amazonify]	[amazonify]1582381291[/amazonify]	[amazonify]158238133X[/amazonify]	[amazonify]1582381259[/amazonify]
[amazonify]1582381429[/amazonify]	[amazonify]1582381321[/amazonify]	[amazonify]1582381364[/amazonify]	[amazonify]1582381577[/amazonify]
[amazonify]1582381496[/amazonify]	[amazonify]0307240509[/amazonify]	[amazonify]1582381313[/amazonify]	[amazonify]1582380902[/amazonify]

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Papers and archives

The Her­bert Spencer Zim and Sonia Bleek­er Papers are held by
Wash­ington State Uni­ver­si­ty and con­tain mate­r­i­al from 1934 to 1976. The Her­bert S. Zim Papers are held at The Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Mis­sis­sip­pi and span the years 1952 to 1992.

Articles and appreciations

“Her­bert S. Zim: Nat­ur­al Patri­ot” by Emmett Duffy (2008) is a nice, per­son­al appre­ci­a­tion of Zim and the Gold­en Nature series.