Book Recommendations?

[~Willow~]

Hello,

I wasn't sure where to put this so it's going here.

It is my partners birthday soon and he has said he wants some really great books to ID and reference, I have no idea what books are really great so thought that I would ask here.

He wants: The complete books of:

- A great spider ID book, detailed and with lots of information.

- Flies Book.

- Moths Book.

- Insect Book.

And any other good books that anyone can think of and recommend as well. We go bug hunting (taking pictures of them not eating) a lot and he likes to come back and identify everything.

At the moment he has this one only: >> Collins Complete British insects

He does not find this book that great. Not enough information on each thing, some very bad pictures etc. So he wants a separate book on each animal group hoping that they will provide lots more information and a lot more better pictures as well.

I have been Googling but am still none the wiser so thought I would put this thread up and see if anyone had any good ideas.

Thank you!

[Hedera]

Try the Field Studies council - they have some very informative separate species books and guides.

[PMG]

Sometimes its better to use online info like UK moths for instance and the Coleopterist - for an up to date list of some very specialised books try googling Natural History Book Society or Subuteo Books - I can never look on either of these without seeing something that I 'want' !!!! It can be surprising waht comes up for sale on Amazon too - worth a look!

Pauline

[Meta menardi]

Collins Field Guide - Spiders of Britain and Northern Europe
Michael Roberts.

This is an excellent guide with superb illustrations and very comprehensive general information along with full descriptions of almost all species. It doesn't cover the tiny black spiders, but if you get hooked, he has a 3 volume publication that is the absolutely the Spiders Palps.If you buy it and are disappointed, let me know, I will buy it off you, my copy is getting realy tired.

[reefbirder]

Hi

I have just bought the following books:

Field Guide to the moths of GB & Ireland - Waring and Townsend - ISBN 978-0-953-399-8-9, Priced £29.95 - Very good
Domino guide to Insect of GB & Western Europe - Michael Chinery - ISBN 978-0-7136-7239-8 - this is out of print at the moment, but I paid a premium to get a copy from Amazon - its okay but limited.
I have had the spider book mentioned earlier for ages and it is good and comprehensive if a little inaccessable (that is probably down to me).

Hope that helps
Rob

[Geoff F]

Willow, I think you need to be a little more specific with regard to your exact requirements of subjects.

That Collins Insect Guide is an excellent starter and I still refer to mine. However, once you move up to the next level things soon get complicated, and expensive.

For example, you say flies. But that is a massive subject. I have British Hoverflies by Alan Stubbs and his book on Soldierflies which also covers quite a few other species. Each book is over 400 pages and costs around £40 each. And these only cover a small area of the fly world.

Moths are another very wide field. Just as well you didn't specify beetles.

That Roberts Spider book is a useful field guide (and also almost 400 pages) but I find that even this does sometimes leave me asking for for information about the identification of many species.

The Field Studies Council does indeed produce some excellent handy guides but many of these only 'skim the surface' of identification requirements. Their cheap 'identification charts' cover quite a few topics but only in scant detail with a thumbnail illustration and a couple of lines of text which in many cases is less than the Collins Guide. But I still find them useful for initially pointing me in the right direction.

It might be worth you having a look at the Pemberley Books Catalogue Pemberley Books - specialists in Natural History literature or NHBS http://www.nhbs.com/ which also have a comprehensive selection.