A Diver's Guide to Underwater Malaysia Macrolife [Hardcover]

Andrea Ferrari (Author, Editor), Antonella Ferrari (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9832731003 | ISBN-13: 978-9832731009 | Publication Date: June 1, 2007 | Edition: Revised

600 different Indo-Pacific marine species fully described in detail with fascinating, first-hand information on distribution, habitat, size, life habits, underwater photography tips, full indexes and more than 800 spectacular photos. The essential field guide for all serious macro divers from the Maldives to Australia.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...best work I've yet seen. For...Mabul or Kunkungan, this book should be as necessary as a passport." -- Back Chatter - August 2003 edition by Ryan Boereme

"...well written, quite informative, beautifully illustrated...a priced right, quality publication. Get a copy, you'll be happy you did!" -- FAMA Magazine

"Illusrated with more than 800 extraordinary colour photos...this is the field guide of choice for all serious macro divers." -- Asian Diver December/January 2004 issue

"The photography is impressive...if you need to identify any species from this area...this guide is a gem." -- Northern California Underwater Photographic Society

"We just discovered the ultimate guide to Indo-Pacific macro life (...) this book is a must for traveling divers" -- Undercurrent, The Editor's Picks, January 2004

600 marine species illustrated with spectacular photos and a compact text for a very useful and much needed underwater guide. -- TAUCHEN Magazine, Germany, December 2003

Both a macro and a fish field guide for all serious divers from the Maldives to Australia. A must! -- Four Lakes Scuba Club Newsletter, February 2004

Colour photographs of the highest quality make it easy to identify what you have seen...An essential tool for anyone. -- DIVER Magazine, UK, June 2004

Identifies and describes 600 small marine species from the Indo-Pacific...Clear, concise, informative... packed with more than 800 colour photos -- BBC Wildlife Magazine, January 2004

This book stands out for the beautiful photography...showing local variations of species. Compact size, publishing of excellent quality. -- whiteheadimages.com, May 2006

About the Author

World-famous marine photographers and nature writers, Andrea and Antonella Ferrari have published several photographic books and hundreds of magazine articles on travel and marine life. Their books - which have been successfully published in Italy, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Great Britain, the United States of America, Malaysia and Japan - include the best-selling "Malaysia Diving Guide" (1997)and its companion volume "Malaysia - An Underwater Paradise" (1998), the sophisticated photobooks "Layang Layang - The Island of Dreams Come True" (1998)and "Top Nature and Dive Resorts of Borneo" (2001) and the extraordinarily successful "Reef Life" (1999) and "Sharks" (2000) nature guides.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 468 pages
• Publisher: Nautilus Publishing SDN. BHD; Revised edition (June 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9832731003
• ISBN-13: 978-9832731009
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,160,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A SURE WINNER WITH MUCK DIVERS AND CRITTER LOVERS, September 3, 2003

By 

Giorgio Carlevero (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Diver's Guide to Underwater Malaysia Macrolife (Hardcover)

This is a spectacular book, and a very useful one for every self-respecting Indo-Pacific muck diver and macro critter lover. For ANY diver, in fact. On the cover it curiously says "Underwater Malaysia" But the inside actually covers a much broader area, from the Eastern Indian Ocean to the Western Pacific, so it's really helpful also if you're diving Thailand, Indonesia, Borneo, the Philippines, PNG or even parts of Australia. I believe this is the first diving ID guidebook entirely dedicated to small Indo-Pacific reef animals (ie those incredibly colorful clownfish, gobies, cleaner shrimps, nudibranchs and the like) - and what a winner it is! What makes it unique for me is the number of rare reef species featured and the amazing color photographs. I discovered a lot of new interesting facts reading the species' descriptions, which are very informative, pleasantly written and often quite amusing, and the reproduction quality of the photos is, wow!, absolutely stunning. Some of the critters (look at those unbelievable flamboyant cuttlefish or the mating mandarinfish) seem to be about to jump out of the page! As guidebooks go, this one is a bit heavier than one would expect, but it is also quite small and easy to carry around on a boat or in a dive bag, and despite being a paperback and not a hardcover the binding looks like it will be able to take quite a beating (travelling scuba divers will know what I'm talking about here). I'm sure as an identification guide this great book can be equally useful to the marine biologist and the advanced aquarist, but as a whole it's obviously geared towards those actually diving and taking photographs in tropical waters. OK, all this does not come real cheap - but in my opinion, considering the quality of the photos and the huge amount of information in it, this book is worth its price to the last dime.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Another book of stunning photographs full of errors., June 4, 2007

By 

Ned Middleton (British professional underwater photo-journalist & author) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Diver's Guide to Underwater Malaysia Macrolife (Hardcover)

Once again we have a book by Andrea & Antonella Ferrari which hides a failing in basic marine identification behind a façade of photographs that are, in some cases, quite outstanding. Clearly, these authors know their photography. Sadly, however, they do not know their species identification as well as they should for a book of this type. In short, there are several instances where this book will mislead the diver.

Altogether, I got the distinct impression that this book was an afterthought whereby they had produced something (anything!) from a collection of surplus photographs from their fairly abysmal "Malaysia Diving Guide" - a book where the publishers could not even get their names right on the cover! (It's true).

In the long term, I fear more and more people will purchase this and similar books, become overwhelmed by the impact of the outstanding photography and take whatever is "written" as being gospel. Then, when the next generation of authors with a camera come along, they will use this book as their own identification bible. Thus the errors are compounded and repeated.

If you want to purchase a book bursting at the seems with excellent images and only wish to look at the pictures then this book is unlikely to disappoint. If, however, you are keen to identify each species seen underwater "Accurately!," then this book cannot be trusted because there is nothing occasional about the errors found here.

NM

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A standout book on the small things, June 6, 2007

By 

Robert F. Myers (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Diver's Guide to Underwater Malaysia Macrolife (Hardcover)

As a marine biologist as well as an author and photographer of marine life books, I tend to purchase only books that have useful information along with decent photography that facilitates easy identification. Books that cover too broad an area or all marine life rather than a particular group tend to fall short. By focusing on the small things in an area of extremely high diversity, the authors have managed to be unusually comprehensive. In my area of expertise, the fishes, I found very few errors (zero is an impossibility given the constant changes as new information comes to light). The photography and printing are excellent. The species descriptions are concise, well-researched and full of information useful to the naturalist as well as photographer. This book belongs on every underwater photographer or naturalist's bookshelf. It is also good enough and compact enough to go in one's luggage in this age of traveling light. For those interested in the Red Sea, I highly recommend the following Coral Reef Guide Red Sea (Coral Reef)