Book reviews

Book reviews

Read reviews of the books we hold in the Chris Mead Library, written by our in-house experts. A selection of book reviews also features in our members’ magazine, BTO News.

Featured review

All the Birds of the World

Lynx have had a long-term project to produce an exhaustive guide to the birds of the world. It started out with the 17 volumes of the Handbook of the Birds of the World (1992-2013) which has family and species accounts for all birds. This was followed by the two volumes of the Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World (2014-16). They have now published the third and final stage of this avian odyssey with this current book.

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All the Birds of the World

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Red Sixty Seven

Author: 67 authors and 67 artists & curated by Kit Jewitt

Publisher: British Trust for Ornithology

Published: 2020

While public support for conservation continues to grow, the funding provided by governments has fallen away. Within the UK, public sector spending on biodiversity, expressed as a proportion of GDP, ...

Fragile: Birds, Eggs and Habitats

Author: Colin Prior

Publisher: Merrell Publishers, London

Published: 2020

The acclaimed Scottish photographer Colin Prior is more usually associated with stunningly evocative panoramic landscapes of his homeland and further afield, but for his latest project the artist has ...

All the Birds of the World

Author: Josep del Hoyo (editor)

Publisher: Lynx Edicions, Barcelona

Published: 2020

Lynx have had a long-term project to produce an exhaustive guide to the birds of the world. It started out with the 17 volumes of the Handbook of the Birds of the World (1992–2013) which has family ...

The Gull Next Door: A Portrait of a Misunderstood Bird

Author: Marianne Taylor

Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton

Published: 2020

Early on in The Gull Next Door, author Marianne Taylor declares that she is “not a true, hardcore larophile”. Don’t be deceived though – she clearly knows her stuff about gulls, and her deep affection ...

European Breeding Bird Atlas 2

Author: Verena Keller, Sergi Herrando, Petr Voříšek, Martí Franch, Marina Kipson, Pietro Milanesi, David Martí, Marc Anton, Alena Klvaňová, Mikhail V. Kalyakin, Hans-Günther Bauer & Ruud P. B. Foppen

Publisher: Lynx Edicions

Published: 2020

Considered by the judges of British Bird Book of the Year 2021 to be the most significant, influential and far-reaching title of the past 12 months, all six awarded their top marks to EBBA2. The book ...

Multimedia Identification Guide to North Atlantic Seabirds: Shearwaters, Jouanin’s & White-Chinned Petrels

Author: Bob Flood(Author), Ashley Fisher(Author) & John Gale(Illustrator)

Publisher: Scilly Pelagics

Published: 2020

Those who have seen previous titles in the Guide to North Atlantic Seabirds series will not be surprised to see this latest offering score highly in Bird Book of the Year 2021. The text, the ...

Where to Watch Birds in East Anglia: Cambridgeshire, Norfolk & Suffolk

Author: David Callahan

Publisher: Helm, London

Published: 2020

Courtesy of its geographic position, diversity of lowland habitats and extensive coastline, East Anglia is high on the list of desirable UK birding destinations. Even in this age of web- and app-based ...

The Consequences of Finding Daniel Morgan

Author: Peter J Robinson

Publisher: Matador, Kibworth Beauchamp

Published: 2019

A thriller surrounding illegal wildlife trade, focusing on tropical birds and remote locations, is certainly a new find in the ornithological section of the library. Robinson’s crime novel is a ...

British Birds: A Pocket Guide (WILDGuides)

Author: Rob Hume, Robert Still, Andy Swash, Hugh Harrop & David Tipling

Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) & Oxford

Published: 2019

Throughout my birding life I have never been a fan of photographic guides. The images in most of these early guides were of poor quality and often only featured one or two plumages per species. Back ...
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