Featured Title

1) Vinicombe, Keith, Alan Harris, and Laurel Tucker. The Helm Guide to Bird Identification. 2014. Helm/Bloomsbury. Paperback: 369 pages. Price: $42.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: This book covers difficult identification issues by looking at tricky species pairs or groups of birds, and comparing and contrasting their respective features. Designed as a field companion, it supplements the standard field guides and provides much additional information. As well as detailed texts, the books include extensive illustrations of all relevant ages and plumages of the species concerned.

$42.95

The Helm Guide to Bird Identification

The Helm Guide to Bird Identification

The Helm Guide to Bird Identification

RECOMMENDATION: I see this book as a supplement to the Birds of Europe published by Collins/Princeton University Press. Birders on BOTH sides of the Atlantic Ocean will find this book useful!

New Title

1) Foley, Charles et al..  A Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Tanzania. 2014. Princeton University Press/WILDGuides.  Paperback: 320 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.                                            
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Home to the Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania offers some of the finest big game watching in the world, from elephants and rhinos to chimpanzees and lions. This field guide covers all the larger mammals of Tanzania, including marine mammals and some newly discovered species. Detailed accounts are provided for more than 135 species, along with color photos, color illustrations of marine mammals, and distribution maps. Accounts for land species give information on identification, subspecies, similar species, ecology, behavior, distribution, conservation status, and where best to see each species. The guide also features plates with side-by-side photographic comparisons of species that are easily confused, as well as first-time-ever species checklists for every national park. This book features:

• The definitive, most up-to-date field guide to the larger mammals of Tanzania, including marine mammals
• Features detailed species accounts and numerous color photos throughout
• Provides tips on where to see each species
• Includes species checklists for every national park

RECOMMENDATION: Anyone with an interest in the mammals of Tanzania will want this book.

New Title

1) Tolkien, J.R.R.. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. 2014. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Hardbound: 425 pages. Price: $28.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s; and from these lectures a substantial selection has been made, to form also a commentary on the translation in this book.
      From his creative attention to detail in these lectures there arises a sense of the immediacy and clarity of his vision. It is as if he entered into the imagined past: standing beside Beowulf and his men shaking out their mail-shirts as they beached their ship on the coast of Denmark, listening to the rising anger of Beowulf at the taunting of Unferth, or looking up in amazement at Grendel’s terrible hand set under the roof of Heorot.
     But the commentary in this book includes also much from those lectures in which, while always anchored in the text, he expressed his wider perceptions. He looks closely at the dragon that would slay Beowulf "snuffling in baffled rage and injured greed when he discovers the theft of the cup"; but he rebuts the notion that this is "a mere treasure story", "just another dragon tale". He turns to the lines that tell of the burying of the golden things long ago, and observes that it is "the feeling for the treasure itself, this sad history" that raises it to another level. "The whole thing is sombre, tragic, sinister, curiously real. The ‘treasure’ is not just some lucky wealth that will enable the finder to have a good time, or marry the princess. It is laden with history, leading back into the dark heathen ages beyond the memory of song, but not beyond the reach of imagination."
     Sellic spell, a "marvellous tale", is a story written by Tolkien suggesting what might have been the form and style of an Old English folk-tale of Beowulf, in which there was no association with the "historical legends" of the Northern kingdoms. 
RECOMMENDATION: Fans of Tolkien's work or of Beowulf should enjoy this book.

New Title

1) Evans, Arthur V.. Beetles of Eastern North America. 2014. Princeton University Press. Paperback: 560 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Beetles of Eastern North America is a landmark book--the most comprehensive full-color guide to the remarkably diverse and beautiful beetles of the United States and Canada east of the Mississippi River. It is the first color-illustrated guide to cover 1,406 species in all 115 families that occur in the region--and the first new in-depth guide to the region in more than forty years. Lavishly illustrated with over 1,500 stunning color images by some of the best insect photographers in North America, the book features an engaging and authoritative text by noted beetle expert Arthur Evans.
     Extensive introductory sections provide essential information on beetle anatomy, reproduction, development, natural history, behavior, and conservation. Also included are tips on where and when to find beetles; how to photograph, collect, and rear beetles; and how to contribute to research. Each family and species account presents concise and easy-to-understand information on identification, natural history, collecting, and geographic range. Organized by family, the book also includes an illustrated key to the most common beetle families, with 31 drawings that aid identification, and features current information on distribution, biology, and taxonomy not found in other guides.
     An unmatched guide to the rich variety of eastern North American beetles, this is an essential book for amateur naturalists, nature photographers, insect enthusiasts, students, and professional entomologists and other biologists.
     This book includes:

• Provides the only comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible full-color treatment of the region's beetles
• Covers 1,406 species in all 115 families east of the Mississippi River
• Features more than 1,500 stunning color images from top photographers
• Presents concise information on identification, natural history, collecting, and geographic range for each species and family
• Includes an illustrated key to the most common beetle families

 

RECOMMENDATION: This well illustrated guide is a MUST have for anyone with an interest in the beetles of the region.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The Weekly Birdbooker Report

                                           Photo copyright: Joe Fuhrman


My WEEKLY Birdbooker Report can be found here: http://www.scilogs.com/maniraptora/birdbooker-report-322/

New Title

1) Aldhous, Chris. Ghosts of Gone Birds. 2013. Bloomsbury. Paperback:  256 pages. Price: $42.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: A visual record of the first four Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibitions, this book introduces the ideas behind this unique art and conservation project, providing a platform for the artists to tell us why they got involved, and how they approached the brief – to “breathe life back into the birds we have lost – so we don’t lose any more”.
     Featuring the work of more than 180 artists and writers, Ghosts of Gone Birds captures the dazzling diversity of gone birds that exist beyond the familiar shape of the Dodo, and re-introduces the world to the delights of species like the Red-moustached Fruit Dove, the Snail-eating Coua and the Laughing Owl. 
RECOMMENDATION: An interesting collection of bird art and essays relating to extinct species.

New Title

1) Birkhead, Tim. The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal. 2003 (2014). Bloomsbury.  Paperback: 268 pages. Price: $17.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new, for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary.
     Favored originally for their voice, by the middle of the nineteenth century canaries had become so popular that millions were exported from Europe to the United States to satisfy demand. During the 1870s, English canary breeders caused a scandal by feeding their birds red peppers to turn them orange. In the 1930s, Duncker’s genetics efforts caught the attention of the Nazi regime who saw him as a champion of their eugenic policies, even though his ingenious experiments were not successful.
     Nonetheless, Duncker’s work paved the way thirty years later for an Englishman, Anthony Gill, and an American, Charles Bennett, to succeed, after recognizing that the red canary would need to be a product of both nature and nurture. In Tim Birkhead’s masterful hands, this highly original narrative reveals how the obsession of bird keepers turned the wild canary from green to red, and in the process, heralded exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation.

The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new, for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary.

Favored originally for their voice, by the middle of the nineteenth century canaries had become so popular that millions were exported from Europe to the United States to satisfy demand. During the 1870s, English canary breeders caused a scandal by feeding their birds red peppers to turn them orange. In the 1930s, Duncker’s genetics efforts caught the attention of the Nazi regime who saw him as a champion of their eugenic policies, even though his ingenious experiments were not successful.


Nonetheless, Duncker’s work paved the way thirty years later for an Englishman, Anthony Gill, and an American, Charles Bennett, to succeed, after recognizing that the red canary would need to be a product of both nature and nurture. In Tim Birkhead’s masterful hands, this highly original narrative reveals how the obsession of bird keepers turned the wild canary from green to red, and in the process, heralded exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-red-canary-9781620407578/#sthash.LtIpBX9m.dpuf

The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new, for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary.

Favored originally for their voice, by the middle of the nineteenth century canaries had become so popular that millions were exported from Europe to the United States to satisfy demand. During the 1870s, English canary breeders caused a scandal by feeding their birds red peppers to turn them orange. In the 1930s, Duncker’s genetics efforts caught the attention of the Nazi regime who saw him as a champion of their eugenic policies, even though his ingenious experiments were not successful.


Nonetheless, Duncker’s work paved the way thirty years later for an Englishman, Anthony Gill, and an American, Charles Bennett, to succeed, after recognizing that the red canary would need to be a product of both nature and nurture. In Tim Birkhead’s masterful hands, this highly original narrative reveals how the obsession of bird keepers turned the wild canary from green to red, and in the process, heralded exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-red-canary-9781620407578/#sthash.LtIpBX9m.dpuf

The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new, for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary.

Favored originally for their voice, by the middle of the nineteenth century canaries had become so popular that millions were exported from Europe to the United States to satisfy demand. During the 1870s, English canary breeders caused a scandal by feeding their birds red peppers to turn them orange. In the 1930s, Duncker’s genetics efforts caught the attention of the Nazi regime who saw him as a champion of their eugenic policies, even though his ingenious experiments were not successful.


Nonetheless, Duncker’s work paved the way thirty years later for an Englishman, Anthony Gill, and an American, Charles Bennett, to succeed, after recognizing that the red canary would need to be a product of both nature and nurture. In Tim Birkhead’s masterful hands, this highly original narrative reveals how the obsession of bird keepers turned the wild canary from green to red, and in the process, heralded exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-red-canary-9781620407578/#sthash.LtIpBX9m.dpuf

RECOMMENDATION: First published in the USA as A Brand New Bird. A new preface has been added for this edition.