Early December once again found Santa...

Early December once again found Santa Claus in the paperback section of his favorite bookstore, looking for last-minute gifts. The budget cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency meant he could get away with lumps of coal for the people on the “naughty� list, he figured, but he still needed some presents for the “nice.�

MY TIBET Photographs by Galen Rowell (University of California Press: $25; 162 pp.) , GALEN ROWELL’S VISION: The Art of Adventure Photography (Sierra Club Books: $18; 288 pp.) . and GALEN ROWELL’S POLES APART: Postcards From the Ends of the Earth (Sierra Club Books: $9.; unpaginated, paperback original). In “My Tibet,� Galen Rowell’s dazzling photographs complement an unpretentious text by the Dalai Lama, who reflects on his experiences before and after his exile. Despite the brutal suppression of his nation, he remains committed to the principal of compassion, declaring: “Today more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human but also human to other forms of life.�

In “Galen Rowell’s Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography,� Rowell explains how he creates his striking photographs of Chile, the Galapagos Islands, Yosemite and the Himalayas. Armchair voyagers will savor his accounts of climbing mountains, parachuting out of helicopters and enduring the subzero Antarctic cold.

Finally, in “Poles Apart,� Rowell compares the Earth’s polar regions; they both boast ruggedly beautiful landscapes and spectacular ice formations. Very different animals, however, inhabit these inhospitable settings: penguins and elephant seals in Antarctica; polar bears and walruses in the Arctic.

After lighting a small fire in the O.J. Simpson section of the bookstore, Santa departed with his traditional apostrophe, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Read! “