Customer Reviews

Shells: Guide to the Jewels of the Sea

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

 

 

This is an excellent book. I was impressed by the photos of different marine mollusks in their native habitats, often engaged in complex feeding activities (especially note Colubraria feeding on a parrot fish through it's mucus bubble). It's very nice to see, for a change, a book dedicated to the living organisms that we as Conchologists often tend to forget when engaging in this hobby. I have an extensive collection of shell books and would say to the best of my knowledge this book simply has some of the finest mollusk habitat photography of any book I've seen. I wish they included a bit more text; I felt that a little more info with those excellent photos this would have made this a classic text. Instead it is a excellent book for the amature collector looking for more than the typical identification of shells book. That maybe a mis-characterization as there was information in the text that was new to me (and I have been in this hobby for 30 years), but a lot of the text seemed 'wanting'. Well worth a look see.

The modern scuba diver has evolved into a contemporary creature who is aware of the underwater environment and the negative impact he is able to assert unless he is careful down there. On behalf of all serious scuba divers everywhere I wish to assert; We are not frogmen, we are not spear-fishermen, we do not wear flippers, we do not breathe Oxygen and WE DO NOT collect sea shells. This book would have you believe otherwise.

Shell collecting was practised in the 19th Century - long before the advent of underwater films and photography which allowed people to see the difference between a living creature in its shell on the seabed and a dead case in someone's collection.

Yet again, we have a low-quality product from a publishing firm who refuse to afford another so-called author any form of biography or explanation. Consequently, we simply do not know whether or not Giorgio Gabbi is a schoolboy, student, experienced scuba diver or holder of a Phd in Marine Biology. Without that knowledge, the book has no credibility whatsoever. Furthermore, there are no meaningful references and no bibliography whatsoever. My conclusion, therefore, is that little of the content may be trusted.

As mentioned in my reviews about other books from these publishers; The translations from parent Italian to English is often derisible. More alarming, however, are the sentiments on the book's back cover - where comments are placed in order to attract the browser into making that all-important purchase. Those comments also give the non-diver a false impression of what it is we are about. Worded in the present tense as though it were still happening, it reads; "Traded like coins, collected like precious stones, revered like amulets, shells are the mysterious ladies of the Ocean: Coloured and luminous, chiselled or smooth, they elicit curiosity in divers and enthuse collectors."

Like I said, out of date!

In short, this is yet another mass-produced item from White Star Publishing of Italy, who have a reputation for specialising in quantity over quality and the reader should not be fooled by some excellent photography.

NM

This is actually a book about the living molluscs, and not the shells themselves. Some of the best underwater photography i have ever seen to date is to be found here and in large format. The text is mostly biological and comprehensive.
The species guide, which is included in the last 50 pages is actually almost next to useless. It is incomplete, the drawings (no photos here) are not always good enough and the descriptions have mistakes.
Anyhow, if you've ever wanted to see an A3-format photo of Tridacna Gigas, two Cypraeas breeding, a Colublaria sucking on a shark or a Conus eating a live fish in a series of photographs, this is the book to buy !

"The Canadian, Northern European and Siberian coasts bathed by the Arctic Ocean have no mollusks in the midlittoral band due to the abrasive action of ice. In the infralittoral and circumlittoral, there are malacological species with brownish or whitish shells, generally covered by a thick dark periostracum."

After a few pages of text like the above my brain becomes numb or actually number than normal. For one with a casual interest in shells who finds a few washed up on the beach but mostly buys them from the gift shops in Ocean City or Cape May "Underwater World of Shells" shares more information than one would need to know or even care to know. For the serious collector of shells, the scientific jargon may be welcome but a lack of deeper depth may disappoint.

For me this book has more than enough merits to justify its ridiculously low price. The photographs are magnificent with impressive color and clarity. Seeing shells with living creatures inhabiting them is quite interesting and fascinating. "Shells" provides information about how shells are formed, how and where the shelled creatures live, and how they procreate. The author provides helpful information about how to collect shells and how to label and organize them.

Be advised that the book has no index, so finding specific names of shells can be hit or miss. At the end of the book are 49 pages of individual shells named and described. The identifying illustrations are drawn, but some are so realistic that it's hard to distinguish it from a photograph.

For less than two dollars as I write this, anyone with only a middling interest in shells will get his or her money's worth by purchasing Underwater World Shells by Giorgio Gabbi.

Good both as technical reference as well as for display