Customer Reviews

Amphibians: The World of Frogs, Toads, Salamanders and Newts

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was actually disappointed by this book.

Each chapter in this book was written by a different person, most of them highly educated academic herpetologists. There's nothing wrong with the information, except if it's become dated since publication. Unfortunately the whole book is just hard to read! The authors wrote for their own educational level; whether the rest of us can follow it or not depends on how interested we are in the material, how good of a herpetological dictionary we have, and our own educational level.

The pictures are beautiful, probably worth the cover price alone.

It's just - as a writer - I know this could have been written so all could read it. My frustration is that people, particularly young ones, would get turned off on herpetology and perhaps even on science after trying to read this book.

The photos in this book are undoubtedly its strength. It may be worth buying this book just for the pictures. The problems with the text are as follows. First, it is obviously translated. It has been edited for correct English, but some of it still sounds awkward. The word usage often seems strange. I found a few errors, probably introduced by the translation/editing process. Second, it is not clear who it is written for. The vocabulary is probably too advanced for a non-scientist, but the information is nothing new for the specialist. Third, some of the information is too cursory to be of much value. For example, the chapter on diseases is very general; I don't think anyone would find the information here of much value.

This book is worthwhile, but I would not consider it an essential reference work. Buy it for the photos, but don't expect the text to be excellent.

This has a lot of information in it and pictures, this is a totally awesome book