Princeton University Press has announced it’s Autumn 2012 natural history list. As might be expected given their taking on select WILDGuides backlist titles in the creation of the new Princeton WILDGuides imprint, a substantial portion of this season’s list is comprised of these books – including (we were very pleased to learn) such international favorites as Chris Gooddie’s The Jewel Hunter.

Among the wholly new books is one that by initial appearances promises to be one of the most original as well as intriguing publications on the subject of bird anatomy that we have seen in quite some time: Katrina van Grouw’s The Unfeathered Bird – a collection of over three hundred drawings of birds in action-oriented poses sans plumage (as well as quite often skill, muscles, etc.). Given the few images we have thus far seen from the book (which are stunning) and its being described by Princeton as “aimed at the general reader,” this could potentially be an out-of-the-park home run for the 2012 holiday book buying season.

Birds do it.

Bees do it.

According to some authorities, even educated fleas do it.

The question is how they do it – find their way around, that is.

In their forthcoming book Nature’s Compass; The Mystery of Animal Navigation, James L. Gould and Carol Grant Gould examine the methods employed by various species, both those traveling long distances for migration as well as those whose entire lives are lived within a relatively small area but within which the ability to locate particular objects (known sources of food, nests, etc.) with pinpoint precision is an essential survival skill, in “finding their way around.”

Nature’s Compass is scheduled to be published by Princeton University Press in June of 2012.

Almost immediately following the publication of his remarkable 2008 book The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, renowned author  and editor-in-chief of Bird Watcher’s Digest Bill Thompson III began to be asked “When is the volume for western North America to be published?” (I know this for a fact as I was one of those asking.) Now, with the release of Thompson’s The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of North America, those questions have been answered – and it is a most welcome answer indeed.

The May / June 2012 edition of Bird Watcher’s Digest contains two original Well-read Naturalist produced reviews:

The Princeton Illustrated Checklist: Birds of North America and Greenland by Normal Arlott (Princeton University Press)

In the Field, Among the Feathered: A History of Birders and their Guides by Thomas R. Dunlap (Oxford University Press).

Moth enthusiasts rejoice! For on 17 April, 2012, David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie‘s long-awaited Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America was officially released for sale.

The first significant field guide to the moths of any North American geographic area since the publication of Covell’s famous 1984 Peterson Field Guide to the Moths of Eastern North America (discontinued in 1996 and dashedly difficult to obtain since then), the new Beadle and Leckie volume, while admittedly confined to a smaller region than the Covell, presents all of its nearly 1,500 included species in full color with facing page textual descriptions and detailed maps.

Walker & Company, a division of Bloomsbury, has announced that on 1 May, 2012 it will publish Tim Birkhead’s new book Bird Sense; What It’s Like to Be a Bird. Known to naturalists and bird watchers throughout the world, Professor Birkhead, FRS, will likely already be familiar to most Well-read Naturalist readers through either his superb 2008 illustrated history of ornithology titled The Wisdom of Birds or his intriguing but now unfortunately out-of-print 2003 book The Red Canary. Now, in this most recent work, he works from the “inside out,” as it were, delving into just how birds perceive and as a result interact with the world around them.

When it comes to news of natural history books, few combinations of words elicit more attention than “Edward,” Wilson,” “new,”, and “book.” So no one should be surprised that when word of E. (Edward) O. Wilson’s latest book The Social Conquest of Earth reached us we wasted no time securing a copy for review. Initial reports, including an interview with the great man himself by Charlie Rose, indicate that in The Social Conquest of Earth Professor Wilson grapples with some of the largest of all possible sociobiological questions – the development of altruistic behavior and cooperation.

One of the most important ecological challenges that every living organism must face is that of “what do you eat and what eats you?” Not surprisingly, given the choice, most would rather find themselves with the predominant amount of their energies addressing the first part of this question; however, for the vast majority of living things, it is the latter part of it that is the far greater concern. While much of the perpetual struggle surrounding this question are often unwitnessed by the amateur naturalist, it can be observed and noted more easily in some taxonomic classes than in others. In his most recently published book, How Not To Be Eaten; The Insects Fight Back, Gilbert Waldbauer seeks to shine a bit of light into this ongoing challenge as it is faced by various members of the Class Insecta and how the solutions they have evolved to address it affect not only themselves but their larger ecological circles as well.

Regardless of your opinion regarding Oprah Winfrey as a literary taste-maker, you can’t deny that when she declares a book to be one of her picks it has a dramatic effect on that book’s sales. In a perfect world, such a boon is only granted to books worthy of being brought to the attention of so many so quickly. Which is why we were delighted to learn that – for this week at least – we do indeed live in a perfect world, because for the week of 2 April 2012, Oprah has selected Julie Zickefoose‘s new book The Bluebird Effect; Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds as her book of the week. Our most hearty congratulations are extended to Ms. Zickefoose for having received this accolade, as are our additional thanks to Ms. Winfrey for selecting such a worthy book for this boon – to our knowledge the first natural history title to which she has given her proverbial nod.

As a boy growing up in a fishing family near the mouth of the Columbia River, one of the first birds I learned to recognize was the Double-crested Cormorant. Little did I realize at the time, however, just what a storied history this bird already had at that time, nor would I have guessed what a swirl of conservation challenges would subsequently swirl around it in the years to come.

For all those interested in this now seemingly ubiquitous waterbird, Dennis Wild’s recently published book The Double-crested Cormorant; Symbol of Ecological Conflict should be of particular interest. According to it’s publisher, the University of Michigan Press, Mr. Wild’s book “brings together the biological, social, legal, and international aspects of the cormorant’s world to give a complete and balanced view of one of the Great Lakes’ and perhaps North America’s most misunderstood species.”