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Meg,

and everyone else too...lol

The book finally came today and i have spent the last few hours living with it...

My 2 cents worth...(maybe not actually worth that much)

First of all the book is not a how to manual so don't expect that...It is more geared as a field guide interlaced with Mr. O'Sheas notes and observations from his field journal and from particular first hand experience into the wild. The pictures are amazing. I would not suggest this book for the beginner or layman unless you have some previous experince with biology, (unless you want to skip that section) as in the first chapters he uses a lot of big words (scientific jargon) to describe the evolution and anatomy of snakes. While pros or those of us that sat through years of academia will probably be bored with the first few chapters. He does a nice job of breaking down the phylogency of the family groups and explores the base snakes such as (Leptotphlopidae).

While he does have a short chapter on reptile conservation I don't think he drove the point home enough for me personally.

The remaining chapters are broken down by:

The Americas
Europe and Asia
Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands
and, Australia and the Pacific Ocean islands.

Again the information is kept to the basics such as range, length and weight, habitiat and general reproduction info. It is obvious he has his favorites. (as he spends more time and space on these)

Some of his field stories are very interesting or humorous, while others are a snooze...also not all variations are represented in the photographs (for instance in the Corallus section only the Northern Emeralds were shown, not the Basins and in the Morelia/Green Tree section nothing was really addresed in relation to locale variation or data)

he has a nice list of suggested further reading at the end....

Only 160 pages cover to cover as i said not overtly detailed... all in all it is a very user friendly book and is layed out well...I wouldn't make it the only book in my library, but it makes a nice addition to any library and well worth the cover price if not for the pictures alone....

(just a side note the book is also almost 14" inches tall so unless you have an adjustable book shelf it will have to live on your coffee table...lol)

It was nice to see the updated info on the neotropical tree boas and the candoia family....I want some Candoia now...lol

Dave and Tracy Barker have written a very nice forward for the book where they called it a valuable addition to any library.

In short buy it...

Happy reading everyone...