Many of you may be asking right about now “what has Mark Avery been reading recently?” I was curious about that very question myself – so I popped over to his website and as I discovered, he’s been reading quite a lot.
Many of you may be asking right about now “what has Mark Avery been reading recently?” I was curious about that very question myself – so I popped over to his website and as I discovered, he’s been reading quite a lot.
Not so very far along my reading of Helen Scales’ new “Eye of the Shoal,” I found myself reading about the friendship and collaboration of John Ray and Francis Willughby on the 1686 book “De Historia Piscium.” However as soon as I read Willughby’s name, my mind immediately flashed to the copy of Tim Birkhead’s recently published book “The Wonderful Mr Willughby; The First True Ornithologist” sitting on my desk. Ichthyology, ornithology – one person publishing foundational books in them both… Those were the days!
Even the most general of naturalists has favorites; creatures, plants, rocks, etc. that he or she takes a particular interest in whenever afield. For many, birds of prey can be found prominently positioned in such rankings. Not for me, however; I’ve long been the one who seems not able to show quite sufficient interest whenever an eagle soars overhead or a falcon makes a stoop.
Traveling on business as I have been recently, it hasn’t taken long for me to fall behind on keeping you all up to date on what Mark’s been reviewing over on his blog. As it turns out, he been quite busy indeed! He’s published three full book reviews since we last checked in on him.