Thursday, August 9, 2018

Something of a disappointment




A review of "Butterflies of North America (Kaufman Field Guides)"

Americans are spoiled by beautiful and exciting butterflies. Europeans, on the other hand, are spoiled by good field guides to butterflies! This Kaufman guide is nothing compared with Tom Tolman's "Butterflies of Europe" or Björn Dal's "Fjärilar i naturen" (a Swedish work). My main objection to it are the illustrations. I'm not sure what on earth they are supposed to be. "Digitally edited photos"? They are worse than painted illustrations, while not looking like photos either.

Frankly, it's amazing that you can screw up a book about *butterflies*, making it aesthetically unpleasing. I'm sure the range maps and species presentations are good for beginners who want to identify butterflies, and with some imagination you might make something out of the digital photos too, but I long for the day when Tom Tolman or Björn Dal makes a trip to North America...

You have longwings, swallowtails and milkweeds, and yet you blew it! REALLY.

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