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List Price: £19.99
Our Price: £11.50
Author:
Austin J. Stevens
By Noir Publishing
 Amazing!!!!!!!!!!!, 2008-10-08
This book is amazing - it has great pictures all the way through. I would recommend this book to everyone.
List Price: £35.00
Our Price: £35.00
Author:
Phillip Glasier
By Batsford Ltd
A reference work, 2008-12-27
Phillip Glasier's Falconry and Hawking is by far the best book on this little known art. His style of writing is as close to being mentored by the well versed hunter as you'll probably ever get! It really does read as though you are being taught, but never patronises the reader, it's a real pleasure to pick-up, and a problem to put down.
The book (now the 3rd Edition) is quite weighty, and contains just about everything to get you started and more. One peice of advice given by him is to get one book, and read that one only, and having ignored that (!) I have bought a few, but this is the one that knocks the rest into touch. It was recommended to me by my mentor with twenty years experience, and she was not wrong.
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.86
Author:
Olivia Judson
By Vintage
Evolutionary biology of sex made easy, 2005-01-31
Dr Tatiana offers helpful advice on a full and satisfying sex life (for optimal reproduction purposes) to a wide range of clients, from insects to bacteria, birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, plants and fungi. Occasional comparisons and parallels are drawn between the sexual practices and 'oddities' of the clients and human sexual habits.This is how it's set out: " It starts with an explanatory note from Dr Tatiana. " The chapters each start with a short introduction, followed by a selection of letters (from correspondents troubled about their peculiar sex lives) and helpful replies from Dr Tatiana. Chapters end with a brief conclusion. " The chapters are divided into 3 parts. Chapters 1 to 5, 'Let Slip the Whores of War!', cover the battle of the sexes; Chapters 6 to 10, 'The Evolution of Depravity', cover the more extreme and beastly methods employed by the warring sexes; Chapters 11 to 13, 'Are Men Necessary?', looks at why sexual reproduction might be preferred to asexual reproduction. " The book ends with extensive notes, bibliography and an index. It was a great pleasure to read this hoard of extraordinary sex stories - so many different life-forms and their astonishing variety of sexual behaviours, all tied together to make a sensible whole. It's a fascinating subject and Olivia Judson presents the facts with clarity and humour, bless her. I vaguely remember how sex was covered in biology lessons at school, 3 decades ago - it was dry, boring and embarrassing. This book is the opposite of that. It's unashamedly rude and funny. It sizzles. Now I know that even birds and bees get up to the most incredible antics in their struggle to reproduce. If they could have made the subject seem even half as interesting as this when I was a pupil, I would have bothered to study.
List Price: £25.00
Our Price: £21.86
By BBC Books
 Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Portfolio 13, 2003-12-31
This is the first of the Portfolio series I have seen, and overall I am impressed with the book. The pictures are stunning and absorbing throughout, even the less pleasant section that deals with man's inhumanity to animals.However I have a couple of complaints; firstly I am not sure whether the print quality could be improved upon as some of the pics appear grainy. Secondly and most irritatingly many of the photos are spoilt by being spread over two pages so what is often a truly amazing picture is ruined by being effectively cut in two. I have no idea why the printers have done this as it detracts from the full impact of the book.
List Price: £16.99
Our Price: £11.72
Author:
Jonathan Kingdon
By Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd
The Best Guide for Field Use in Africa!, 2006-08-05
This compact little guide is a condensed version of "The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals" (ISBN: 0713665130) by the same author. That book is easily the best overview of African mammals, with detailed info on each species/genus, but it is not really practical for use as a field guide (see my review of it).
This book contains the same illustrations arranged in a format that makes them handier for actual identification in the field.
It is very comprehensive, covering every single species of African mammals with the exception of bats, rodents, insectivores, elephant-shrews and hyrraxes, which are usually represented by one species for each genus. But every single genus is represented, and of rodents, every species of squirrel is dealt with separately.
Maps and brief info on distribution and ecology of each taxon is now to be found on the pages facing the illustrutions.
The latter are a mixed bag, as in the original work: while most are quite good, even excellent and life-like, others are quite awful, either showing animals with stiff, straight limbs/bodies as if drawn with a ruler (like the Crowned Monkey) or in highly unnatural positions (like the Potto with the limbs twisted out, or the Cheetah standing up like a circus horse).
All things considered, this is easily the best field guide to mammals of Africa, though for more in-depth information on each taxon, you may still want to have the original book in addition to this one.
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £5.15
Author:
Robert Kunzig
By Sort Of Books
The title of Mapping the Deep suggests that it is primarily about oceanography. Although the extremely interesting history of this subject forms a major element in the book, its broader, richer subject is man's changing relationship with the oceans. Until recently these have been characterised by high-handed ignorance, the oceans seen at once as inexhaustible resource and bottomless dump. Robert Kunzig remarks that politicians and science writers seem to be most interested in space exploration, whereas the real story is closer at hand--in the oceans. The symbolic goals of space exploration are easier to understand than the endlessly complex ecology of the deep oceans or the mysteries of the great currents that circle the globe and control its weather. Yet, as Kunzig demonstrates, the oceans are where the future of mankind may be determined. It is now widely accepted, for example, that global warming may precipitate a sudden, massive realignment of the ocean currents, an event certain to have vast but unforeseeable consequences. The climatic catastrophes attendant on the relatively minor disturbance known as El Nino give an idea of what may be in store. Mapping the Deep r...
a masterclass in how to make science interesting, 2006-07-19
Robert Kunzig won the Aventis Science Book of the Year award for Mapping the Deep.In my opinion it is the best science book written in the last ten years.Scientists know so little about the ocean and most of them know little about how to communicate what they do know to the layman.Kunzig takes their limited knowledge and conveys the great beauty and mystery of the oceans to the reader.
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