Disclaimer! Princeton Publishing provided the copies for review!
Book cover. Oh how excited I was for this one!
Price listed on book - US $12.95
Author - Steve N.G. Howell
Pages - 50Size - 5"x7" - and less than a cm thick. Much smaller than I was expecting, but of no concern.
Topics covered - What are flyingfish, Where are they, How many kinds are there, size, how they fly, why they fly, colours, identification tips, notes
Photographs - Numerous! (90+?) And they're all awesome!
The skinny: Ever since the ABA put out a blog post with numerous of Mr. Howell's flyingfish photos, I have been in awe of these little creatures. When word got out about a Princeton book, I had to check it out!
(an image from the book)
The good: EVERYTHING (I think)...
The photographs make this book, beyond any shadow of a doubt... They are spectacular... I'm not sure what more there is to say about them, but they are of superb quality, informative, educational and varied to suit just about every possible need.
The text is fun and easy to read... It's also very informative... Heck - I wish the book was longer, larger and had more photos - but that isn't a bad thing! The colour scheme works well and the layout is visually appealing.
A+
The bad: Two things jump out at me as "bad" - which is a bit of a joke really.... Because the book is awesome, and these are just minor.. But hey! I need to write something.
The cover: The fish used on the cover is pretty awesome, but the quality is lacking... It's somewhat blurry... I can only assume they chose the image because it is a particularly colourful fish, and you can see the eye pretty well... Heck - it's an awesome image, and being blurry isn't the full reason i'm choosing to write about this. I'm not even sure I could pick a better image inside the book to use in that context - but I had to mention it!
The other thing I didn't like was a bit of photo-shopping on page 10. It is specifically stated to be a fake photo-shopped image to illustrate a point, but I think it could have been done better with a real image... That's it!
(part of a page, from the book itself - so awesome!)
Who should buy it: EVERYONE! (Seriously)
This is such a fun book, and it's only $13... Get it for kids, your grandparents, anyone... Even if you hate nature (or know someone who does) this is the type of book that could ignite the spark for an appreciation of the natural world.
Go get it!
More info here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10221.html
No comments:
Post a Comment