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 (2014–2016). 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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Crossbills & Conifers: One Million Years of Adaptation and Coevolution

Author: Craig W. Benkman

Publisher: Pelagic Publishing, Exeter

Published: 2025

It’s always a thrill to see a Crossbill! I’ll never forget my first sighting of Common Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), the species that we see most regularly in the UK. It was at Lawson’s Clump in ...

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 Little Tern colony on the North Sea coast in East Yorkshire. It offers an intimate portrait of these endangered birds, ...

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 ...

Encounters with Corvids

Author: Fionn Ó Marcaigh (author), Aga Grandowicz (illustrator)

Publisher: Natural World Publishing, Dublin

Published: 2025

Dr Fionn Ó Marcaigh is a zoologist from Dublin, who received his PhD from Trinity College in 2023 for a thesis on the evolution of birds on islands. Encounters with Corvids is his first published book ...

Endemic: Exploring the Wildlife Unique to Britain

Author: James Harding-Morris

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, London

Published: 2025

Endemic. It’s a word that conjures up imaginings of species only found in tropical rainforests or islands. As soon as I read the title of this book I was intrigued. Endemics in Britain. It’s something ...

Land Beneath the Waves

Author: Nic Wilson

Publisher: Summersdale Publishers, Chichester

Published: 2025

“I am not a memoirist” declares Nic Wilson at the start of her new book. But we do indeed learn a lot about her life in the ensuing 13 chapters, although some details are pieced together with help ...

Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood

Author: Adam Nicolson

Publisher: William Collins, London

Published: 2025

In Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood, Adam Nicolson charts his journey to learn more about the natural world surrounding his home of over 30 years in the Sussex Weald. From the vantage point of the ...

The Cuckoo’s Lea: The Forgotten History of Birds and Place

Author: Michael J. Warren

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, London

Published: 2025

In this book, author Michael Warren takes us on a journey across England (and a bit of Wales) and through time to explore the connection between English place names and birds. Especially interesting ...

The Rarity Garden: The Great White Cape of Flamborough

Author: Richard Baines

Publisher: Yorkshire Coast Nature

Published: 2025

Barely a week goes by without another book appearing on the shelves which delves deep into the personal way that nature, in one way or another, has impacted on the writer’s life. Often self-reflective ...
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