Coral Reefs

Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous book, incredible information for reef hobbyists
Review: This is one beautiful book. It's a shame it's out of print. The author gives an enormous amount of information on various coral reefs throughout the world, and extensive information on the animals that inhabit them, including some references to reef aquaria. However, the book was published in 1989 so any information on aquariums is somewhat dated. This book is not about marine aquariums, but any marine aquarist can learn a lot about reef inhabitants from reading this book. Highly recommend!

Rating:
Summary: A book at odds with it's author's sentiments.
Review: What I cannot understand is where this author is coming from. On the one hand, his personal biography describes him as someone who, having had a passion for the coral world since he was a boy, has served as a marine biologist (though apparently without any qualifications) and has gained awards for "contributions to marine science for his research work on the reefs of St. Lucia." He is further described as "since 1984 Les Holliday has been actively engaged in the introduction of marine parks in both the Indian Ocean and Caribbean."

All very laudable, but it then goes on to describe him as someone "with a wide experience of marine fish-keeping." Indeed he is also described on the book's front cover as an "aquarist." Perhaps it's me, but my first criticism is that taking tropical fish from their natural environment and keeping them in an artificial one is at odds with the overall aim of this book.

Furthermore, whilst there is no doubt that most of the photography in this book is of a very high standard and the graphics - whilst basic, are easy to follow, there are far too many pictures of divers touching the corals and hand feeding the fish.

Quite frankly, for all his experience, I don't think this author actually "understands" his subject.

NM