madbadgalaxyman
29-01-2013, 11:04 AM
There follows a copy of my latest book review, as can be found at american amazon.com
My 44 book reviews of astronomy and biology books can be found if you google search on these words:
"Amazon.com: Profile for R.A. Lang"
(at amazon.com, I am known as "madbioman", not madbadgalaxyman!!)
I do feel that people who have detailed knowledge of a particular subject ought to submit accurate and detailed amazon.com reviews of books in their area of knowledge, as those days are over when we could read mulitiple book reviews of scientific books in various magazines (for instance, Sky and Telescope once had a long and detailed book review section, and now it only reviews far fewer books)(same goes for Scientific American and the like)
I am also given to understand that specialist (formally qualified) reviewers for science books are also getting much harder to find;
so we are doing a useful public service when we review a book about a subject in which we have detailed knowledge.
Here is my review of "Walker's Marsupials of The World" by Nowak (ISBN: 0801882117)(Paperback edition)
I gave this book three-and-a-half stars out of 5, mainly due to the age of the reference and it's "so-so production values
Useful and Concise and scholarly Encyclopedia of all the Marsupials
RATING: 3 and 1/2 stars. This is a very broad & concise reference work, covering ALL of the marsupials living in diverse habitats and continents. If anything, the lesser known marsupials of South America, and the numerous 'obscure' species of Indonesian and New Guinea marsupials, are given a greater emphasis than the Australian marsupials. This is all to the good, as some people have a very bad habit of thinking of Australia as THE land of the marsupials.
The marsupials were once as diverse as the familiar placental mammals, but recently they have greatly suffered from competition with placental mammals....however, marsupials can in no way be regarded as 'primitive'. In Australia, many marsupials are 150 percent well-adapted to Australia's Hot Dry environment and Very Poor soils and low biological energy availability. Furthermore, the Worldwide Marsupial Family is a noble and extremely ancient lineage that stretches back more than 120 million years into deep time.
The fundamental organizational unit within this book is the 'Genus'. Each Genus of marsupial is described in roughly a page of informative and terse and very densely-typed prose. When people talk loosely of what 'type' of animal a particular animal is, the particular 'type' of animal often can be named scientifically as the animal's Genus. Within each and every Genus of marsupial, all of the existing species are described in this book, mainly with a view towards comparing the attributes of the different species within the Genus, rather than by giving extensive details of each species. Each Genus is also accompanied by a Black & White photograph of a representative species within that genus.
Thus, the emphasis of this book is on breadth of coverage rather than depth. In about 220 pages, the entire range of marsupial morphology and behaviour and habitat is described, so the purpose of this book is to give an overview and to provide a useful reference for the entire Marsupialia grouping.
This book is a very worthwhile reference work for libraries, for the persistent and enthusiastic amateur naturalist, for biology students at various levels (assuming that they have at least some modest background knowledge of biology!), and for professional scientists. It enables a person having at least some prior knowledge of biology to make a 'quick and easy' comparison of ALL of the different types of marsupials.....and to think about the various hypotheses as to their evolutionary histories. Understanding is achieved much FASTER here than when you read a 'novel-like' popular-level book that is full of historical asides and descriptions of the peculiar personalities of the scientists involved.
The strength of this book is its academic rigour, its clear and well-defined structure, and its conciseness:
(1) It is terse and densely informative, with a rigorously logical and clear structure.
(2) Each chapter (and each section and each sub-section within each chapter), is clearly organized and split up according to the assigned Linnaean Classifications of these animals. A chapter covers an entire Order, within which there are smaller sections for Families within that Order, and smaller sections for the Genera within each Family.
This clarity enables a rapid appreciation of marsupial Diversity & Evolution, so this reference work is a useful 'first port of call' for obtaining information about various marsupials. Furthermore, this book usually avoids the use of excessive and unnecessary biological jargon.
The weaknesses of this book are mostly connected to the age of the information provided and the book's production values:
(1) While the publication date is 2005, the latest date for the copious references used in the main body of the text is about 1995.(However, the book is partly updated with an excellent 2005 introductory essay by Christopher Dickman.)
(2) Black & White photographs are used throughout. Unfortunately, a significant minority of these photographs are not of good enough quality to enable a really good appreciation of what an animal looks like.
The age of this excellent reference, and the existence of good numbers of 'so-so' photographs, have meant that I have had to reluctantly reduce my rating to three-and-a-half stars. However, you can't go wrong if you buy yourself one of the many 'super cheap' copies floating around on the Internet.
My 44 book reviews of astronomy and biology books can be found if you google search on these words:
"Amazon.com: Profile for R.A. Lang"
(at amazon.com, I am known as "madbioman", not madbadgalaxyman!!)
I do feel that people who have detailed knowledge of a particular subject ought to submit accurate and detailed amazon.com reviews of books in their area of knowledge, as those days are over when we could read mulitiple book reviews of scientific books in various magazines (for instance, Sky and Telescope once had a long and detailed book review section, and now it only reviews far fewer books)(same goes for Scientific American and the like)
I am also given to understand that specialist (formally qualified) reviewers for science books are also getting much harder to find;
so we are doing a useful public service when we review a book about a subject in which we have detailed knowledge.
Here is my review of "Walker's Marsupials of The World" by Nowak (ISBN: 0801882117)(Paperback edition)
I gave this book three-and-a-half stars out of 5, mainly due to the age of the reference and it's "so-so production values
Useful and Concise and scholarly Encyclopedia of all the Marsupials
RATING: 3 and 1/2 stars. This is a very broad & concise reference work, covering ALL of the marsupials living in diverse habitats and continents. If anything, the lesser known marsupials of South America, and the numerous 'obscure' species of Indonesian and New Guinea marsupials, are given a greater emphasis than the Australian marsupials. This is all to the good, as some people have a very bad habit of thinking of Australia as THE land of the marsupials.
The marsupials were once as diverse as the familiar placental mammals, but recently they have greatly suffered from competition with placental mammals....however, marsupials can in no way be regarded as 'primitive'. In Australia, many marsupials are 150 percent well-adapted to Australia's Hot Dry environment and Very Poor soils and low biological energy availability. Furthermore, the Worldwide Marsupial Family is a noble and extremely ancient lineage that stretches back more than 120 million years into deep time.
The fundamental organizational unit within this book is the 'Genus'. Each Genus of marsupial is described in roughly a page of informative and terse and very densely-typed prose. When people talk loosely of what 'type' of animal a particular animal is, the particular 'type' of animal often can be named scientifically as the animal's Genus. Within each and every Genus of marsupial, all of the existing species are described in this book, mainly with a view towards comparing the attributes of the different species within the Genus, rather than by giving extensive details of each species. Each Genus is also accompanied by a Black & White photograph of a representative species within that genus.
Thus, the emphasis of this book is on breadth of coverage rather than depth. In about 220 pages, the entire range of marsupial morphology and behaviour and habitat is described, so the purpose of this book is to give an overview and to provide a useful reference for the entire Marsupialia grouping.
This book is a very worthwhile reference work for libraries, for the persistent and enthusiastic amateur naturalist, for biology students at various levels (assuming that they have at least some modest background knowledge of biology!), and for professional scientists. It enables a person having at least some prior knowledge of biology to make a 'quick and easy' comparison of ALL of the different types of marsupials.....and to think about the various hypotheses as to their evolutionary histories. Understanding is achieved much FASTER here than when you read a 'novel-like' popular-level book that is full of historical asides and descriptions of the peculiar personalities of the scientists involved.
The strength of this book is its academic rigour, its clear and well-defined structure, and its conciseness:
(1) It is terse and densely informative, with a rigorously logical and clear structure.
(2) Each chapter (and each section and each sub-section within each chapter), is clearly organized and split up according to the assigned Linnaean Classifications of these animals. A chapter covers an entire Order, within which there are smaller sections for Families within that Order, and smaller sections for the Genera within each Family.
This clarity enables a rapid appreciation of marsupial Diversity & Evolution, so this reference work is a useful 'first port of call' for obtaining information about various marsupials. Furthermore, this book usually avoids the use of excessive and unnecessary biological jargon.
The weaknesses of this book are mostly connected to the age of the information provided and the book's production values:
(1) While the publication date is 2005, the latest date for the copious references used in the main body of the text is about 1995.(However, the book is partly updated with an excellent 2005 introductory essay by Christopher Dickman.)
(2) Black & White photographs are used throughout. Unfortunately, a significant minority of these photographs are not of good enough quality to enable a really good appreciation of what an animal looks like.
The age of this excellent reference, and the existence of good numbers of 'so-so' photographs, have meant that I have had to reluctantly reduce my rating to three-and-a-half stars. However, you can't go wrong if you buy yourself one of the many 'super cheap' copies floating around on the Internet.