Originally published to noteworthy acclaim in 2017, “Britain’s Spiders” from the Princeton University Press WILDGuides series has now been fully revised and updated into a second edition by the authorial team of Lawrence Bee, Geoff Oxford, and Helen Smith.
The last time I was in England – in addition to being much too long ago – was too late in the year for much in the way of orchids to be seen. While I was in the correct place to have seen quite a variety (Oxfordshire), what remained by the August of my arrival there was only a patchy assortment of very dark brown stalks of plants already gone to seed.
As a life-long resident of the U.S. state of Oregon, I find it absolutely galling how many of the field guides to the plants, animals, and fungi of this country are limited in their geographic range to the eastern portion of it. So when I learn of a new one being published that focuses the western U.S., I immediately take notice.
Mark Avery and I have now both reviewed James Canton’s “The Papers,” each approaching it from our own different perspectives. That’s the beauty of reviewing books – different reviewers, bringing a diverse range of knowledge and experiences to the books they review, can easily interpret the same book in different ways yet still agree it is worth recommending.