Doing any serious research into, or writing about, the life and work of Charles Darwin can be an overwhelming endeavor. After all, between all the books he wrote, all the discoveries he made, all the people with whom he corresponded, all the species named in his honor, and of course, all the kerfuffles that arose as a result of his work, just locating exactly what you might be seeking can be a seemingly daunting task to say the least.
Surpassing 900 pages as it does in order to contain the “more than 800 species” of birds presented in its species profiles, “Birds of North America” is a much weightier tome than its series sibling, “Trees of North America.” Not surprisingly, it is not by any means a field guide but rather a reference guide – a role it can be expected to play reasonably well for general readers who would like an attractive, extensively illustrated reference guide around the house.
While the National Audubon Society has a long and justly respected name in the world of natural history books, the history of these books themselves has been a bit – shall we say – “up and down.” Those sufficiently long in the tooth (such as myself) may well remember the well-crafted volumes by such authoritative authors as Richard Pough, with their well-wrought and thorough yet never prolix text, finely detailed black & white illustrations, and in later editions even central color plate sections. Then of course, there was that later series…
Hailed as “one of the most comprehensive mycological guides ever published,” the recently published two volume “Fungi of Temperate Europe” by Thomas Laessoe and Jens H. Petersen is a grand tour through more than 2,800 of the fungi species to be found throughout Europe’s temperate zone.