New Titles

 

1) Broughton, Richard. The Marsh Tit and The Willow Tit. 2025. T & AD Poyser. Flexibound: 304 pages. Price: $50.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: The Marsh Tit and the Willow Tit are two small birds of woodlands and forests extending from Great Britain to Japan. They are resourceful, resilient, vocal and bold. Both species are an important part of our natural heritage and are sentinels of our wooded ecosystems, sensitive to habitat changes that send their populations into decline and signalling problems in these precious habitats.

     In this first monograph for either species, Richard Broughton reveals the intricacies of the remarkable lives of these birds, bringing together decades of personal study and a detailed review of the wider research from Europe and Asia. We learn about each species' taxonomy, communication, food and foraging patterns, habitats, social organisation, breeding behaviour and dispersal, as well as exploring the challenges they face and their future prospects.

     With more than 150 illustrations, including unique maps, charts and colour photographs, The Marsh Tit and The Willow Tit brings together a wealth of information surrounding these fascinating species and considers how we can better understand and conserve them.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a MUST-HAVE for those with a serious interest in this pair of tits! 

 

 

2) Strange, Morten. A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Indonesia: Updated Second Edition. 2025. Tuttle Publishing. Flexibound: 544 pages. Price: $34.99 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Indonesia is the most extensive photographic reference available for Indonesia's incredible birdlife.

     Home to the world's most diverse avifauna, Indonesia's vast size and unique geography make it a premier destination for bird-watching enthusiasts. With over 1,600 species—including 235 rare species found nowhere else—Indonesia is a treasure trove for nature lovers.

     This field guide profiles 912 species, featuring concise descriptions and photographs for each, including most non-migratory and endemic species, as well as numerous threatened and endangered birds. Every entry includes a detailed distribution map, while the updated edition showcases nearly 100 newly added or improved photographs, carefully chosen to highlight each bird's defining features.

     Designed for accessibility and ease of use, the guide also includes an index of common names, making it an essential companion for bird enthusiasts exploring Indonesia's extraordinary wildlife. 

 

RECOMMENDATION: I see this book as a useful supplement to the standard field guides to the region.

3) Milton, Nicholas. The Birdman of Auschwitz: The Life of Günther Niethammer, the Ornithologist Seduced by the Nazis. 2024. Pen and Sword History. Hardbound: 225 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: When Soviet troops were liberating Auschwitz concentration camp in January 1945 among the piles of half burnt corpses and emaciated prisoners left behind, they were amazed to find nesting boxes for birds. The same boxes were found in the walled garden at the house of Rudolf Hoess, the notorious camp commandant. In his safe, they also discovered a research paper on the birds of Auschwitz with a personal dedication. It read ‘I owe this to the great understanding which the commandant of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz, SS-Sturmbannführer Höß, gave to the scientific development of this area and the research tasks that the German expansion in the East brings with it.’

     The nesting boxes and research paper belonged to one of the most erudite but naive guards ever to serve at the camp, Dr. Günther Niethammer. On his arrival in 1940 Niethammer’s passion for birds soon became known throughout Auschwitz and led to him being assigned to ‘special duties’ by Hoess. So instead of guard duties, Niethammer shot game to order for commandant and conducted the most infamous bird survey of all time.

     Turning a blind eye to the heinous treatment of the prisoners and the extermination of the Jews, Niethammer instead shot birds and created a macabre museum of bird skins at the camp working with one of the inmates. After leaving Auschwitz, he carried out further bird surveys in occupied Crete, Bulgaria, and Italy. When the war was finally over Niethammer was put on trial but spent just 3 years in prison before returning to the Museum Koenig where his career, although tainted by association with Auschwitz, still flourished until his death in 1974.

     This is the story of the one of the greatest ornithologists of his generation who was seduced by the Nazis and became 'The Birdman of Auschwitz'.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in World War 2 and/or ornithological history!

 

4) Aulagnier, Stéphane et al.. Field Guide to Mammals of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East: Third Edition. 2025. Bloomsbury Wildlife. Paperback: 320 pages. Price: $40.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Fully revised and updated, this major work presents all species that occur in the Western Palearctic, serving as the perfect field guide to the great diversity of mammals in the region. This new edition presents 86 new species, including 40 cetaceans, and reports on the latest scientific advances and taxonomic changes.

     Species accounts are concise and authoritative, giving information on size, distribution, habitat, behaviour, reproduction and feeding. Each account is supported by distribution maps and superb colour illustrations. The book features over 125 plates, comprising more than 650 colour species artworks. Variation between the sexes is illustrated, and anatomical diagrams including tooth arrays are provided to assist identification.

     Field Guide to Mammals of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East is the only guide you'll need to identify any mammal across the Western Palearctic.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a MUST-HAVE for anyone with an interest in European mammals!

 

5) Witton, Mark P.. King Tyrant: A Natural History of Tyrannosaurus rex. 2025. Princeton University Press. Hardbound: 310 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Tyrannosaurus rex is the world’s favorite dinosaur, adored by the public and the subject of intense study and debate by paleontologists. This stunningly illustrated book brings together everything we have learned about T. rex—the “King of the Tyrant Lizards”—since it was first given its famous name in 1905. It presents these creatures as science knows them rather than the version portrayed in movies, revealing them to be dramatically different, and far more amazing, than ever imagined. With numerous original paintings and diagrams by the author, King Tyrant draws on the latest discoveries to offer a modern understanding of Tyrannosaurus, pulling back the curtain of media hype that often obscures these extraordinary extinct animals while cementing their reputation as the most formidable carnivores of the Mesozoic.

• Features more than 150 breathtaking illustrations, photos, and diagrams
• Covers everything from the research history of T. rex to their anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, behavior, and extinction
• Reveals how the Tyrannosaurus known to science is characterized as much by radical changes in body form throughout its growth as its enormous size and powerful jaws
• Discloses details about their lifestyles and behavior evidenced from fossils, from violent face-biting between rivals to their capacity to literally pull the heads off Triceratops carcasses
• Gets to the bottom of the many controversies surrounding T. rex, such as: Was there really more than one species of Tyrannosaurus? Did they live and hunt in groups? How fast could they run and how hard could they bite? Can we truly distinguish males from females?
• Discusses T. rex in popular culture, showing how our love for this dinosaur has both helped and hindered research

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a MUST-HAVE for anyone with an interest in T. rex!

 

 

6) Kuper, Peter. Insectopolis: A Natural History. 2025. W. W. Norton. Hardbound: 256 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper transports readers through the 400-million-year history of insects and the remarkable entomologists who have studied them.

     This visually immersive work of graphic nonfiction dives into a world where ants, cicadas, bees, and butterflies visit a library exhibition that displays their stories and humanity’s connection to them throughout the ages. Kuper’s thrilling visual feast layers history and science, color and design, to tell the remarkable tales of dung beetles navigating by the stars, hawk-size prehistoric dragonflies hunting prey, and mosquitoes changing the course of human history.

     Kuper also illuminates pioneering naturalists, from well-known figures like E. O. Wilson and Rachel Carson to unheralded luminaries like Charles Henry Turner, the Black American scholar who documented arthropod intelligence, and Maria Sybilla Merian, the seventeenth-century German regarded as the mother of entomology.

     Galvanized by the sixth extinction and the ongoing insect crisis, Kuper takes readers on an unforgettable journey.

RECOMMENDATION: There's a companion coloring book for this title for $18.99 U.S.. This graphic novel would be a good way to introduce children and the general public to entomological history.