Book Description
With more than sixty confirmed kills, Jack Coughlin is the Marine Corps' top-ranked sniper. Shooteris his harrowing first-person account of a sniper's life on and off the modern battlefield G unnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin is a divorced father of two with an Ivy League background who grew up in the wealthy Boston suburb of Waltham. He had thirty-six kills in Iraq- thirteen in a twenty-four hour period during Operation Iraqi Freedom-and has one of the most successful records of any sniper on active duty.Now, after twenty years behind the scope of a long-range precision rifle, Coughlin has written a highly personal story about his deadly craft, taking readers deep inside an invisible society that is off-limits to outsiders. This is not a heroic battlefield memoir, but the careful study of an exceptional man who must keep his sanity while carrying forward one of the deadliest legacies in the U.S. military today.
Customer Reviews:
.....wow...........2007-08-10
Shortly into the story it becomes pretty evident that this wasn't the "confession" of an honored and admirable soldier. This is not a warrior who wanted to share his story with the world to ease the burden of killing men who were fighting for their beliefs, even if those beliefs where not the same as his.
Jack was a soldier and sniper who saw "the dumbest man in all of Iraq" in the first day of battle. The Iraqi fighter was not dumb to Jack because he watched him do something truly stupid, like load bullets into his AK47 backwards. This fighter was "the dumbest man in Iraq" because he was 1/2 mile away and felt secure and concealed enough behind a thick bush to attack from that position (remember that these soldiers are fighting based on experience and not from years of hardcore training like our Marines). Jack took this son/grandson/cousin/fathers/brother/friends/Iraqi soldier's life from his family. I honestly believe that the Iraqi fighter should have been killed because he was attacking our countrymen. However, I would respect Jack a little more if he treated a man that was so destitute in his beliefs he was brave enough to attack an entire force of American soldier, with a little more grace and respect. Instead, Jack takes credit for his cold bore 1000 meter (hahaha...oh but his rifle was already zeroed into the EXACT, no kidding he says it in the book, distance of the target haha) shot that saved an ENTIRE BATTALIONS MAIN COMMUNICATIONS HUBS from the ONE GUY ONLY PACKING AN AK47.
Sorry for the brief ramble, but this book is filled with complete ego. I am ex-military and have been hunting and shooting for 17 of my 25 years on this earth and I have more respect for the deer/elk/beer/mtn. lions that I harvest than Jack has for the soldiers he has killed in battle. Through the book I was trying to tell myself that a sniper has to have an inflated confidence in themselves, but this was ridiculous!
By the time I finished I thought of Jack as a supply and backline soldier who wanted to try to convince SOMEONE that he was good at his job as a sniper because he couldn't convince the Marines. It seemed that he killed not only because it was his job, but because he enjoyed it as well.
~Cam
Top Ranked Marine Sniper.......2007-08-05
Very realistic and updated perspective of what a modern day sniper might face in battle !!!!I have previously read the encounters of snipers in Vietnam.....and that was most interesting also ,but this book is the most recently published technology and tactics !!!
Coughlin.......2007-07-06
I didn't read this book yet but I knew Jack back in the day when I referred to him as a Sh** Bird. He actually was a good Marine as were most of us. If this book is anything like the Coughlin I knew back in the 80s, then I am sure it will be quite a read. Semper Fi.
RICK SHAQ GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "SUPERSTAR OF SNIPERS!".......2007-07-04
I would first, like to make a point about the title, that I picked for my review. Some people, might possibly find it offensive. But if you were watching a motion picture, or a TV program, that had Jack as one of the main characters, and his comrades referred to him in that exalted way, you would take it in stride. Imagine Jack, as the young sniper in "Saving Private Ryan". With that being said, let's continue with the review. I felt this was an excellent book, and one of the things that appealed to me, as a U.S. Veteran, is that Jack and his co-writers, wrote in the "language", that is truly spoken between men, not only in war, but in training for war. Another thing that I really liked, was the fact, that as bad as Jack wanted to be a sniper, he then had even higher goals. He had the desire, to not just be the best sniper, but he had the drive and vision, to try to improve the entire operating procedure of snipers. The battlefield, was not the same as in World War II. A couple of earlier Marine marksmen, Hathcock and Mawhinney, showed in Viet Nam, "that snipers could be much more aggressive and effective by getting out of their holes and going on the hunt." I know what Jack meant, when he describes the anguish, of not only keeping classified missions to yourself, but also, dealing with the uncontrollable memories of death you've created, that reverberate in your dreams, that you can't discuss with anyone, including your wife. Jack says: "If I awoke suddenly in the middle of the night, with a start so violent, that it shook the bed, Kim knew not to question why or what was going on in my head. She was careful not to startle me with a sudden touch." This passage, sent chills up and down my spine, since in my own life, twenty years after I was out of the service, I was a single father, who always wanted my young son to wake me, before he left for school, and give me a kiss. He got scared, at the way I would wake up, swinging and yelling, about things I never told anyone. We then used a procedure, where he would come into my bedroom, tap my shoulder, and then run to the doorway, and after I got back to normal, I would give him a hug and kiss goodbye. I would like to give one last comparison of Jack's stature, especially, for the benefit of people that weren't in the military. I was awarded the "Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, (SAEMR) with an M-16. Comparing that, to what Jack did, is like you comparing your two-year-old son's, hitting a wiffle ball, off a plastic tee, to the accomplishments of Babe Ruth. There are three things I'm happy for, after reading this book: 1) That Jack was on our side. 2) That Jack got home alive. 3) That Jack and his cohorts wrote this book. God Bless America!
P.S. The 2007 movie with the same name, has absolutely nothing to do with this book.
I would have given zero stars if that was an option.......2007-05-19
Reading all the praise below, I had to double check to make sure I was reviewing the correct book. As an avid reader of military non-fiction, I found this to be among the worst I have read. Coughlin takes great pains to declare that he took no joy in his job, yet the book is peppered with with cliche'd macho phrases and terms, like "smoke-check" (used over and OVER again) and "invincible gunslinger persona". I actually laughed out loud a few times at the ridiculous ways that Coughlin refers to himself. The relentless back-talking to superior officers is also a pretty hackneyed feature of this work. And then there is the story, which is really just a loosely assembled account of some events that happened during the initial push to Baghdad. The author's poor command of prose couldn't even make that interesting in and of itself. By the end of the book I suspected that the author was really trying to convince himself, not the reader, that he wasn't getting off on every kill he logged. If you like reading arrogant, self-praising accounts that make use of every military cliche' ever penned, look no further. If you appreciate writing quality, humility, interesting content, and a believable author, seek elsewhere.
Book Description
Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin is the Marine Corps top-ranked sniper. Shooter is his harrowing and very human first-person account of one mans battle to remain sane and hold his family together while personally bringing Americas military muscle to the enemys front door. Coughlin is also a divorced father of two who grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb. At the age of nineteen, although he had never even held a gun, he joined the Marines, and would spend the next twenty years behind the scope of a long-range precision rifle. In that time, he accumulated one of the most successful sniper records in the Corps, ranging through many of the worlds hotspots. During Operation Iraqi Freedom alone, he recorded at least thirty-six kills, thirteen of them in a single twenty-four hour period. This highly personal story about his deadly craft, takes you deep inside an invisible society that is off-limits to outsiders.
Customer Reviews:
SHOOTER.......2007-08-23
VERY GOOD STORY, MODERN DAY CARLOS HATHCOCK, YOU GET THE IDEA HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED AND HE ADAPTED WITHOUT A PROBLEM TO THE CHANGES NECESSARY . BEING A TARGET SHOOTER MYSELF I UNDERSTAND
KENNETH M. WADE
A Must Have !!!.......2007-07-20
First Book I Ever Read "To The End"
Its Great ,Its Real ,You Wont Put The Book Down
I Was Not Into Books Until I Read This One
A very good read, but more background would make it great.......2007-07-15
Jack Coughlin and company did a great job at writing the reader into the story, so that you are watching over Jack's shoulder in combat during the rush into Baghdad. Additionally, Coughlin's idea of a mobile sniper unit is unique to this book and satisfying to see the process unfold.
Other reviewers say this book is not worthy of highest praise because it lacks eloquence and Pulitzer-caliber prose. To that, I would say that any title covering military matters should be nothing more than simple, concise, and accurately gritty. "Shooter" has all of these qualities. Anything more or less would either dilute or glorify the nature of war--both of which are unwarranted and undervalue the sacrifices made by those that fight for us.
What would have taken this book from "very good" to an "epic" would be to cover more than the war in Iraq. Coughlin gave several hints of his past skirmishes, and it would have been immensely interesting to see his Marine sniper career solidify over time.
Shooter- the best war story ever told.......2007-04-19
Shooter is a action packed book about a top-ranked marine sniper, Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin in Operation Iraqi Freedom 2002. Going through sandstorms and unexpected firefights in Iraq Coughlin one by one took down major targets. The invincible sniper takes you through the emotions of war because of family, friends, and the death of your favorite marines. Coughlin done a good job in Operation Iraqi Freedom and telling a story of his own war. I think anybody who is intrested in adventure, war, and violence or just the Iraqi war, should read this book!
Shooter is truely the best war story ever told.
lame.......2007-03-13
this is an awful book anyone who says other wise dosen't read much.
Big fan of first hand war accounts with the exception of this one.
Don't waste your money.
Average customer rating:
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Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-ranked Marine Sniper Libbrary Edition
Casey Kuhlman , and
Donald A. Davis
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ASIN: 0786176415 |
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Featuring original reminisces of American Indian and white participants, The Battle of Beecher Island focuses on the 1868 struggle of the Cheyenne Dog Soldier warriors to defend their land on the central plains of Colorado and Kansas from white encroachment.
Average customer rating:
- Probably best used as a key to other works before going
- Italy in Mind
- Great writing, a wonderful read
- English teacher obsessed with Italy finds kindred spirits
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Italy in Mind: An Anthology
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Desiring Italy: Women Writers Celebrate the Passions of a Country and Culture
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ASIN: 0679770232
Release Date: 1997-04-29 |
Amazon.com
Italy has long been associated with love, images of Romeo serenading Juliet, and over-sexed locals pinching tourist flesh. But another Italian love affair has been going on for just as long, namely the writers who've been enchanted with the place for centuries. Alice Powers has collected an anthology of 41 authors spanning two centuries and all of Italy. There's Lord Byron on Venice, Herman Melville on Padua, Michael Ondaatje on Tuscany, Charles Dickens on Genoa, Richard Wilbur on Rome, Mark Twain on Naples, and Calvin Trillin on Sicily, for a feast of fine literature set in glorious surroundings.
Book Description
Comprised of short stories, novel excerpts, essays, poetry journals and letters, this work will delight anyone who loves Italy or great travel writing. Pieces include Barbara Grizzuti Harrison marveling at baroque Sicilian confections, Mary McCarthy celebrating Venice's threadbare dignity, and Henry James's Isabel Archer succumbing to the treacherous antiquities of Florence.
Customer Reviews:
Probably best used as a key to other works before going.......2005-08-16
I packed this book on a recent tour of Italy, and read most of it on the beach near Paestum towards the end of our two-week vacation. The variety and scope of the selections included in this anthology matched my (characteristically) eclectic itinerary well (Lucca, Padua, Venice, Assisi, Salerno), and the book's size and weight is appropriate to include with the luggage.
If, like me, you never quite know what you are going to want to read once you are actually in Italy, this book is not a bad solution to the problem.
In some ways I wish I had read the anthology before going, and packed the entire texts from a few of the original sources instead. I particularly enjoyed the selections from Matthew Spender's book "Within Tuscany, Reflections on a Time and Place" and, more surprisingly, Susan Sontag's novel "The Volcano Lover". It's not clear however if something like "The Volcano Lover" would have been nearly so captivating if I hadn't first started reading it near Vesuvius. I know, for example, that Shelley's poem "Stanza's Written in Dejection, Near Naples" probably wouldn't have grabbed me if I hadn't read it after a long lunch on a perfect Summer day, near Naples.
Why only 4 stars? The chapters are ordered alphabetically by author's last name, which confused me at first (I'm kind of dumb) and struck me as a bit of a cop-out. It was also confusing trying to figure out when the selections were originally written, which is particularly annoying when reading a non-fiction piece.
Italy in Mind.......2004-07-27
I Loved this book. I am a travel writer (Italy Guide, Tusnacy & Umbria Guide, Rome Guide) and thought I knew Italy like the back of my hand, but this volume opened up vistas I could not have imagined. I found myself following in the footstep of literary greats, dogging their posthumous steps through the pages of Italy in Mind, and ended up seeing so much more of the country than I had before. Highly recommended reading before travel and while there. A gem of a book.
Great writing, a wonderful read.......2003-04-01
There is a new-found wealth of books about Italy available today. "Italy in Mind" is a bit different: Alice Leccese Powers has mined three centuries of great writing to portray the character of Italy from many different vantage points in time and geography. But regardless of the era and the events of the day, the beauty of the land and character of the Italian people always shine through. This is the perfect book to read outdoors, on a warm summer afternoon, with a nice glass of Chianti by your side. I enjoyed the book so much, I just purchased her follow-up works, "Ireland in Mind" and the just-released "France in Mind."
English teacher obsessed with Italy finds kindred spirits.......2000-12-20
Since visiting Italy this year, I haven't been able to get enough of it. I have read first-hand accounts of Americans living in Italia ("Under the Tuscan Sun" and "The Hills of Tuscany"). Both offered refreshing insider looks at the culture of the country, but "Italy in Mind" is a different breed altogether.
As I myself strolled along the shore of Lago Maggiore, wound my way through the narrow streets of Venice, and dodged the whizzing vespas in Florence, I wondered what classic authors and great thinkers had penned as they experienced similar things. In this volume, I have found, at long last, the answer. Filled with poems, letters, essays, and excerpts from well-known classical works (e.g., "A Farewell to Arms" and "A Bell for Adano"), "Italy in Mind" offers a wide scope of authors' experiences and thoughts during their stays in my favorite European country. Helpful also is the table of contents which provides information on which city or region is described in each piece.
"Italy in Mind" is a manageable but somewhat scholarly approach to a mild obsession with Italy. It would be a great read for anyone who has visited Italy, dreams of visiting Italy, or is interested in finding out more about it. I know I will be looking up some of the complete works which are excerpted in this volume or are mentioned in the informative author biographies.
Average customer rating:
- Tuscany In Mind
- Beautiful words, beautiful places
- Tuscany in Mind
- Absolutely Fabulous
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Tuscany in Mind
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Italy in Mind: An Anthology
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Italy: A Short History
ASIN: 1400076757
Release Date: 2005-05-17 |
Book Description
In her fourth literary travel companion, Alice Leccese Powers explores one of the most seductive regions of the world through more than two centuries of fiction, poetry, essays, letters, and memoirs by English-speaking visitors to northern Italy.
The poet Shelley called Tuscany “a paradise of exiles”; it has long been a magnet for literary travelers and expatriates. Here are writers who have made their home in Tuscan villas, castles, and farmhouses, from the Shelleys, Byron, and the Brownings to Frances Mayes. Here too are Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Henry James, and E. M. Forster on the glories of Florence, Pisa’s leaning tower, and the enchanting Tuscan countryside, alongside the tart wit of Mark Twain, Mary McCarthy, and Erica Jong. From James Boswell’s record of his romantic dalliances to Laura Fraser’s memoir
An Italian Affair to Sarah Dunant’s novel
The Birth of Venus,
Tuscany in Mind assembles a glittering mosaic portrait of an unforgettable place.
Kinta Beevor • James Boswell • Elizabeth Barrett Browning • Robert Browning • Lord Byron • Bruce Chatwin • Ann Cornelisen • Charles Dickens • Sarah Dunant • Lawrence Ferlinghetti • Penelope Fitzgerald • E. M. Forster • Laura Fraser • Paul Gervais • Barbara Grizzuti Harrison • Robert Hellenga • William Dean Howells • Henry James • Erica Jong • D. H. Lawrence • David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell • Robert Lowell • Frances Mayes • Mary McCarthy • H. V. Morton • Eric Newby • Iris Origo • John Ormond • Elizabeth Romer • John Ruskin • Mary Shelley • Percy Bysshe Shelley • Kate Simon • Tobias Smollett • Matthew Spender • Stephen Spender • Mark Twain • Edith Wharton
Customer Reviews:
Tuscany In Mind.......2005-06-12
A variety of book excerpts, poems and essays written by English and American authors about that magical place, Tuscany. They're introduced with little-known details about each author, general biographical data as well as personal reflections on Ms. Powers's own travels to Tuscany. I recommend this book to anyone planning a trip to Tuscany -- even if it's only via armchair.
Beautiful words, beautiful places.......2005-06-08
The very idea of compiling an anthology of writings about Tuscany is brilliant. The place, whether you've been there or not, whether you plan to go or not, whether you live there or never leave your armchair set elsewhere, has fired the imagination for centuries. And this for a good reason, though that reason is very difficult to express. Fortunately, a variety of great writers have been moved to put down their experiences, and describe the enchantment of this loveliest of all places. And even more fortunately, Ms. Powers has assembled this fabulous and provocative collection. Beyond the land, the people, the art, the history, the food, the rhythm, there is something more ephemeral that is truly the Tuscan lure. Ms. Powers' wonderfully readable, fantastically varied set of accounts, somehow, like the place, amounts to more than the sum of it's considerable parts. I will read this book again a number of times, whenever the mysterious pull that is Tuscany beckons.
Tuscany in Mind.......2005-06-08
It's all here. Prose, poetry, expository writing, memoirs . . . all about one of the most beautiful regions on the planet. When I closed this book, I felt as if I'd just returned from six weeks in a Tuscan villa. The unforgiving EURO be damned; this is a terrific read.
Absolutely Fabulous.......2005-05-18
Just like Ms. Leccese Powers other anthologies, this book is a dream. The best way to immerse yourself in your travels before during and after your trip. If you want to visit Tuscany through the eyes of many different literary luminaries, read this book. Highly recommended. A real gem.
Douglas E. Morris, author of "Italy Guide" and other books about Italy. www.TheItalyGuide.com
Book Description
Originally published in five volumes, Birds of Europe with North Africa and the Middle East covers all but a few of the Western Palearctic's breeding birds, and includes information on all regularly encountered vagrants. This guide has over 400 color illustrations, including 140 completely new plates, up-to-date color maps, and a fully revised text. With species accounts, distribution maps, and illustrations on facing pages, it is practically designed and easy to use. Originally published in five volumes, Birds of Europe with North Africa and the Middle East covers all but a few of the Western Palearctic's breeding birds, and includes information on all regularly encountered vagrants. This guide has over 400 color illustrations, including 140 completely new plates, up-to-date color maps, and a fully revised text. With species accounts, distribution maps, and illustrations on facing pages, it is practically designed and easy to use.
Customer Reviews:
A "must have" for bird lovers - just for the plates.......2005-11-15
This is a perfectly viable field guide to the birds of Europe and, if it weren't for the existence of the Collins Guide, it could easily be a top recommendation. One thing marks this book apart from other field guides though: the illustrations are so beautiful that they might have been painted for art's sake alone. I have been fascinated by Jonsson's gulls and shorebirds from an earlier series published by habitat and now to have all the birds together is just wonderful. His paintings capture the feel of the bird better than those of any other artist I know. This book will give great aesthetic pleasure long before (and after) one gets it into the field.
Lars Jonsson and his passion.......2001-02-03
As a born North-Sea-coast birder and knowing the work of Lars Jonsson since 1977,(his famous five smaler volumes "Birds in the wild" I realised that preparing for North Africa could not be a mistake in buying this book,even if there is the extra weight of all the North European birds described in the book and not to bee seen in Marocco. His marvelous illustrations are a pleasure for all everyone and the book a must for all foreign birders visitting Europe. As a Belgian , I own a big library with a lot of field-guides, especially Petersons' , but this book rivals them all.
Patrick
If ever you feel to publicise this letter,bee free to correct my english .Thanks.
Four stars may be a little low..........2001-01-16
...however, the option of four and a half was not offered, and I'm not sure this guide rates a perfect score. I was very impressed with it. It is well-written (and well-translated, I guess); covering the points of identification well, and very nicely illustrated. The fact that range maps for species on one page are occasionally placed on the following page may be a minor irritation to some, but range maps, in my view, are largely placed in guides for their interest value. Birds fly, and will turn up outside of their normal range, thus, range maps are not important for field identification (at least not during migration of migratory species; and probably as a general rule), and the necessity to turn a page is not a major problem with this guide. This is, overall, an excellent guide, and I can't wait for the opportunity to use it on the home ranges of the species it covers, in stead of on the occasional vagrant.
Well illustrated, informative, confusingly organized.......2000-03-22
I have used this guide in Europe, a region with which I am not (in terms of avifauna) particularly familiar, and I find it informative and useful. I have heard varying opinions on the artwork - some rave about it, others say it is too artificial/unnatural/etc. I align myself with the former camp - intracacies and details of field marks are well illustrated and easily discernible - yes, perhaps more so than they would be in the field, but I have trouble with those who fault a guide for showing features not readily visible in the field - any experienced birder should know this is an eternal pitfall to *any* guide.
The text is excellent - well-written (I of course have only used the English translation, I have seen translations in other European languages as well) and concise. I do have two critiques, however: one, I would like each species description to be subdivided by keywords in boldface to make finding important features such as size, habitat, etc. easier to find in a pinch, and two, the criticisms I have read of the layout are mostly well-founded. It is not always clear to which drawing/painting a given species description applies - range maps are not always on the same page as the text or illustration, etc. This is inexcusable and would have been easily remedied if only by use of large, boldfaced numbers a la Simpson and Day (Aus.) or Grimmett et al. (India/Subcontinent).
As for the size, I almost always carry either a buttpack or daypack into the field - so it doesn't bother me a whit. I can't imagine *not* carrying a pack, in fact, so I disregard this criticism entirely - but those who feel otherwise might want to borrow a copy to see how it works for them. For any birder, however, I would say the use for which this guide is most well-suited is as a prep guide - the book to pore over en route to your birding site, soaking in as much of the extremely informative text as possible. It is by no means without fault as an in-the-field guide, but very good nonetheless.
No.1 Guide in Europe for many years.......2000-01-29
Lars Jonsson's book has been the number one recommendation for both beginners and experianced birders for many years now, only recently improved upon by the Collins 'Birds of Britain and Europe' by Killian Mullarney et al.
The illustrations in Jonssons book are not perfect but are indeed a good guide to the birds of Europe when 'in the field'. Some birds are illustrated looking 'puffed-up' or 'fat', guides cannot show ALL postures, they should be used as guides only. The book is not as portable as other guides but if you can carry it in your bag then try to do so.
Birds of Europe : With North Africa and the Middle East is definately worth having as part of 'group' of reference guides to the birds of Europe.
Book Description
Every one of the 887 species of birds found in Britain and Europe is described and illustrated - including all rarities and introduced species. The book provides the information needed to identify every species - whatever its age or sex - and special pages highlight groups of birds that are difficult to identify.
Book Description
Drawing on their unrivaled field experience in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, authors Mark Beaman and Steve Madge have combined forces with some of Europe's finest bird artists to produce the region's most comprehensive guide ever. This is the first book to cover every species to have occurred in the region, including vagrants and accidentals--nearly nine hundred species in total. Color illustrations depict each bird and its main plumage stages and subspecies. An extensive text explains all aspects of identification, status, and habitat, while full-color maps within the text offer detailed distributional information.
During the compilation of this book, Beaman and Madge traveled throughout the region, from Iceland and Siberia to the Cape Verde Islands, Egypt, and Georgia. Their field experience is reflected in the breadth and accuracy of the information presented in this guide and in the thorough treatment of difficult or little-known groups. The innovative design of the book makes it accessible to beginning and expert birdwatchers alike. The Handbook of Bird Identification for Europe and the Western Palearctic is the ultimate reference guide for every birdwatcher interested in the region.
Customer Reviews:
If you want a field guide buy a field guide.......2002-12-20
The previous reviewer criticised this for being too heavy to take to the field. That's hardly what it's for! To get 900 birds and this much information into a field guide you had to have had a free magnifying glass to read it. As to complaints that some of its political geography is outdated, Pshaw! A book as good as this takes years to prepare, it's never going to be able to follow the fast changing countries of Eastern Europe. It's irrelvant if Czechoslovakia doesn't exist as a single political entity anymore, everyone knows what area it refers to.
This is a superb achievement but it needs to be judged for what it is not what it doesn't try to be!
If you want a good European bird field guide, the recent Collins book is probably the best field guide for any region ever.
The ultimate guide for identification?.......2000-02-02
I was a little disappointed when I finally got my copy, since I expected more based on the ads and the book's price. I can recommend this book for those collectors who want to have ALL the nice bird books, but a non-European would find it way too heavy to carry in the field, and citizens of almost every European country would find outdated (i.e 10 years old) information on the distribution of several species. Even the country boundaries are representing pre-1990 status in the Eastern part of Europe (Czechoslovakia does not exist as one country any more etc.). While two thumbs down for the distribution maps, the text is OK (although not free of mistakes, either) and the pictures range from mediocre to very good. If you are on a tight budget buy only Svensson et al's Collins Bird Guide (under a different title in the US though) for less than half of this book's price but has excellent pictures and a perfect size for your pocket.
An excellently detailed one volume book.......1999-05-13
This book has a well thought out format with beautiful, detailed illustrations of the species in their different plumages. It is the only current one volume presentation of the birds of the western palearctic. It is thoughtfully written and the distribution maps are nicely detailed and easily understood.
Average customer rating:
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A Field Guide to the Raptors of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa
William S. Clark
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0198546610 |
Book Description
The birds of prey must rank among the most imposing and spectacular birds to be found anywhere in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. In this comprehensive new identification guide, Bill Clark presents the latest information on tried and tested field marks for identifying the diurnal raptors, both perched and in flight. Many of these field marks are the result of his own extensive experience in identifying raptors, and have never before been published. Forty-eight stunning colour plates, especially painted for this volume by artist N. John Schmitt, depict all the plumages for every raptor found in the Western Palearctic region, both regularly occurring and vagrant. The plates are augmented by a forty-page colour photograph section. The accompanying text provides the essential clues to identification. These include detailed plumage descriptions for each age, sex, and colour morph, as well as sections describing flight, moult, behaviour, and distribution for every species. The text also contains useful sections on similar species - notoriously difficult to identify - and how to distinguish them. Each account concludes with the range of measurements for length, wing span, and weight. Bill Clark has been working on the raptors for over thiry years, observing them, studying them, writing about them, and photographing them. His passion for birds of prey has taken him around the world, and in particular to Europe and to the Middle East, making him uniquely qualified to write this book. It will be essential for any birdwatcher or ornithologist who wants to watch and identify the region's raptors in the field.
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|
The Birds of Britain
Heinzel ,
Richard S. Fitter , and
Parslo
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0828906653 |
Books:
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- The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas
- The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis, A Personal Biography
- The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time
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- The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
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