DMW
Well-known member
There are plenty of fabulous bird books these days, but I doubt any of them will have the same sentimental value to me as those I grew up with.
The attached photo has 4 of my 5 favourite books - my Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide to a Random Selection of European Birds (forever moulded to the shape of my right buttock) is M.I.A. somewhere in my loft.
They are all, in their own ways, atrocious by modern standards - Williams only illustrated and described about half the species in the region and left you to guess the rest; The Pictorial Guide illustrations are straight out of a children's book; those in King aren't much better, and the layout is horrible; and Inskipp looks like it was cobbled together over a long weekend by an undergraduate student with a typewriter... and quite possibly was (but only cost about 50p in Kathmandu).
However, at the time they were all there was, and in their own ways were brilliant. As you can see, they were very well-used, and all of them bring back fond memories of days when foreign birding trips were more about heading into the unknown and enjoying what you got, rather than the stressful military operations of today.
I'd be interested to know what books others have a similar fondness for!
The attached photo has 4 of my 5 favourite books - my Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide to a Random Selection of European Birds (forever moulded to the shape of my right buttock) is M.I.A. somewhere in my loft.
They are all, in their own ways, atrocious by modern standards - Williams only illustrated and described about half the species in the region and left you to guess the rest; The Pictorial Guide illustrations are straight out of a children's book; those in King aren't much better, and the layout is horrible; and Inskipp looks like it was cobbled together over a long weekend by an undergraduate student with a typewriter... and quite possibly was (but only cost about 50p in Kathmandu).
However, at the time they were all there was, and in their own ways were brilliant. As you can see, they were very well-used, and all of them bring back fond memories of days when foreign birding trips were more about heading into the unknown and enjoying what you got, rather than the stressful military operations of today.
I'd be interested to know what books others have a similar fondness for!