Penguins: The Ultimate Guide

Penguins, The Ultimate Guide by Tui De Roy, Mark Jones, and Julie Cornthwaite. 2013. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, and Oxford, United Kingdom. 240 pages, .400 color photographs. $35 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0691-16299-7. This book is a singular, magnificent step forward, a supernova for the eyes and minds of all penguin-lovers and, indeed, penguin researchers everywhere. That said, it needs noting that the penguin research world is necessarily small and, inevitably, denizens in our little universe wind up crossing paths. Or, in this instance, occasionally needing to face the challenge of reviewing a book co-authored by two colleagues (Tui De Roy and Mark Jones) with whom I’ve collaborated on another book (Wild Ice: Antarctic Journeys, Smithsonian Press, 1990) and which, as well, contains a supplementary article in its Science and Conservation section by a present-day colleague (Heather Lynch) with whom I continue collaborating on my ongoing Antarctic Site Inventory project. And so, let me admit these connections straightaway and proceed, damn the torpedoes, to review what I believe to be the finest penguin book of recent vintage. The authors’ photographs, all through this new book, are stunning. As a picture book or coffee-table item, this effort is superlative and an enormously pleasing visual experience. It’s especially impressive to spy so many photographs showing off penguins’ characteristic behaviors (e.g., Rockhopper Penguins (Eudyptes chrysocome) hopping over rocks and cliffs, various species in ecstatic display during the breeding season, penguins sleekly ‘porpoising’ through the water). And, as a photographer myself, I truly love the setups and the numerous penguinlevel (or below-penguin-level) camera angles that are presented, the author–photographers having obviously gotten their fingernails very dirty-in-guano to capture many of these shots. But the photos are just the staggering, first impression of a truly meaty tome. Our attention is peaked with such images. The authors then take us on a detailed, comprehensive journey encompassing myriad aspects of the breeding biology, feeding ecology, and population ecology of these remarkable birds, buttressed by conservation issues facing various species. It’s a potentially consuming approach that allows one to dig as deeply as one chooses. The book is divided into three sections: Life Between Two Worlds, Science and Conservation, and Species Natural History, with much shorter, subsidiary sections on Where to See Wild Penguins and Notes on References and Further Reading. Life Between Two Worlds contains the authors’ essays about their passion for these birds, the cycle of penguin life, and impressions of various groupings of the 18 penguin species. There are many enjoyable, first-person accounts of the authors dealing with penguins up close and personally, and this initial section is the reader’s introduction to each species, which, later in the book, will be amplified. Science and Conservation is my favorite of these three major sections because it expands details regarding the scientific work to which many of us researchers are devoted and dedicated, but which, often,