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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The Storm-petrels

Author: Rob Thomas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, London

Published: 2024

It’s difficult to do justice to such a clear labour of love in a short review. The passion, fascination and sheer awe author Rob Thomas has for storm-petrels leaps off the page, and is infectious. In ...

Birds & Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Year Relationship

Author: Jeff Ollerton

Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, Exeter

Published: 2024

Perhaps because I don’t have much of a scientific background, I picked up this book and assumed that it was ‘just’ about the link between birds and flowers. However, it is about so much more about ...

ID Handbook of European Birds

Author: Nils van Duivendijk

Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton

Published: 2024

The ID Handbook of European Birds is divided into two volumes, covering non-passerines and passerines. The first thing apparent is the sleek design and the number of high-quality photographs. Every ...

Ten Birds That Changed the World

Author: Stephen Moss

Publisher: Faber & Faber, London

Published: 2024

In Ten Birds That Changed the World author Stephen Moss succinctly explores our relationship with birds over 10 chapters. He cleverly uses their charm and approachability to show how our actions have ...

Aves Elektron: Death of the Nightingale

Author: MiE Fielding

Publisher: Voert Digital, New York

Published: 2024

At first glance this book appears to be a somewhat random collection of black and white photographs of, mostly, dead birds, litter, and housing developments. But as one delves deeper, it becomes ...

Robin Prytherch: A Life with Buzzards

Author: Robin Prytherch and Lyndon Roberts (ed.)

Publisher: Bristol Books, Bristol

Published: 2024

Robin Prytherch : A Life with Buzzards is a charming anthology of Buzzard scenes sketched by Robin Prytherch and sent out by him to his friends as Christmas cards between 1995 and 2020. These 26 ...

Clinging to the Edge: A Year in the Life of a Little Tern Colony

Author: Richard Boon

Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, Exeter

Published: 2024

Clinging to the Edge is the story of one breeding season at the Beacon Ponds colony on the North Sea coast in East Yorkshire. It offers an intimate portrait of these endangered birds, covering ...

The Meaning of Geese

Author: Nick Acheson

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing UK

Published: 2023

3rd place in Best Bird Book of the Year 2023 Migratory geese fall into that group of species that have an accompanying cultural resonance because their arrivals and departures mark the changing ...

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife

Author: Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, London

Published: 2023

Gardens cumulatively make up a huge habitat in the UK and for those of us lucky enough to have a garden they have the potential to host all sorts of amazing wildlife. This book is a remarkably ...
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