Books, Books, and More Books!

I just perused a printed copy of the April 2006 Books on Birds, touted as “the best catalogue of books from specialized publishers,” from Lynx Edicions. The catalog lists no fewer than 377 bird books, 77 of them new (i.e, published in 2005 or 2006)! They are categorized as follows:

General – 55 (22 new)
Palearctic – 95 (16)
African – 27 (6)
Oriental – 38 (8)
Australasian – 18 (0)
Nearctic – 8 (0)
Neotropical – 37 (9)
Monographs – 92 (16)
Other – 7 (0)

While this list has a decidedly Eurocentric flavor, it does illustrate the overwhelming (and continually increasing) number of bird books being made available (i.e., marketed) to birders and ornithologists.