Non-passerine summary

904 pages, 357 plates, 8,290 bird illustrations, 4,428 distribution maps, 34 full-page reference maps and 2,126 bibliographical references. Does that sound like something you want? Could be yours for just over 200 dollars!

The Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World (Volume 1: Non-Passerines) is a summary of the seven non-passerine volumes of the mega-encyclopedia known as Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW). In addition, it contains over 400 new species, previously assumed to be subspecies or similar such. This fact alone makes it necessary reading for scientists or very advanced ornithologists.

I'm not sure if the general public is interested in an extended taxonomic revision of a previously published encylopedia, but apparently HBW was a commercial success even outside academe, so who knows…