New Zoo Books

The Zoo Tourist: Visiting America's Zoos and Aquariums (Lenny Flank, 2021) was just published last week. It is a collection of stories about the Bronx Zoo, Columbus Zoo, Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Central Park and Philadelphia debating which was first :p, and many other tales.

https://www.amazon.ca/Zoo-Tourist-V...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1618365464&sr=1-8

The Accidental Invasion of Baghdad Zoo (Brendan Whittington-Jones, 2021) is at least the second book about the Baghdad Zoo during wartime.

https://www.amazon.ca/Accidental-In...idental+baghdad&qid=1618366455&s=books&sr=1-1
 
snowleopard said:
The Zoo Tourist: Visiting America's Zoos and Aquariums (Lenny Flank, 2021) was just published last week. It is a collection of stories about the Bronx Zoo, Columbus Zoo, Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Central Park and Philadelphia debating which was first :p, and many other tales.

https://www.amazon.ca/Zoo-Tourist-V...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1618365464&sr=1-8
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This seems to have very little to do with visiting zoos and seems more like random zoo stories. Looking up the author, he's a prolific self-publisher in bad need of graphic design help (he calls himself the "editor" but every book not written by him is open access or has no copyright). 89 books on amazon list him as author or co-author.
 
A strange book for sure...and TinoPup has answered a major query as to who the author is. Actually im convinced that the author actually has not visited many(any?) of the the zoos he describes...or rather, DOESNT describe. That is not to say that the book has no value(especially at the price)...his historical account of each zoo is probably as lengthy as America`s Top 100(although there are mistakes) and has some things that are different,even a few things that myself and S.L. were not aware of(if they`re correct). The rest of each account is made up of some zoo-related conservation story that sometimes has only tenuous links to the zoo concerned.. Busch Gardens and Hawaiian Geese for instance(without a mention of Honolulu Zoo or Slimbridge in the UK). Zoologically it is bland, without specific details (literally) on a number of taxa, then again,on America`s Top 100 we had the luxury of publishing without the general public in mind... its an Amazon self-published book,which is often disastrous for proof reading ie grammar and spelling - but in this case it isnt bad at all. There is no design element(in keeping with many Amazon books) and it has been padded out with just a few dull,predictable, poorly-captioned, black and white photographs of zoo animals at the end. At the price its worth owning(just).
 
Atlanta's Iconic Ape: The Life of Willie B. (Terry L. Maple, 2021) is available on Amazon for a very reasonable price. Maple was Director of Zoo Atlanta during its renaissance a couple of decades ago, and in 174 pages he recaps the life of famous gorilla Willie B., who died in 2000. I ordered a copy via Amazon.ca

https://www.amazon.com/Atlantas-Iconic-Ape-Life-Willie/dp/1638370737/
 
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TinoPup said:
Roosevelt Park Zoo has put out a commemorative book to celebrate their centennial, in conjunction with their local newspaper. It costs $35 and is currently only available in their gift shop.
Centennial | Roosevelt Park Zoo
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It is now possible to order the Roosevelt Park Zoo centenary book online. The link below has images of several pages of the book and it looks great! I ordered myself a copy already. :)

Centennial | Roosevelt Park Zoo
 
There's a new book coming out soon called Zoos of Britain and Ireland. It will include the top 50 zoos with several pages devoted to each, covering the history of each zoo along with highlights of their current collections and things like that. There's also sections on things like bird gardens, zoos & theme parks, Edinburgh Zoo's penguins, and other topics of particular interest. The authors have said it'll be shipped worldwide, with all orders coming from the UK. There's a list of the zoos on the webpage, along with a preview of the book: Zoo Book - Featured Zoos
 
Treasured Legacies Book | DesertMuseumArts.com
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum released a new book a couple weeks ago which I picked up and read (link above). It's kind of odd. The description in the link says it includes a history of the musuem, but this is only partly true. It includes a short history of their traveling animal ambassador program (Desert Ark) and a short history of their raptor free flight program. The full museum history, including the many on-site exhibits, are not covered. (These were previously covered in the excellent book Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum: A Scrapbook). The very short histories of the two programs I noted are followed by numerous scratchboard art reproductions of the animals in the program. These were done by Priscilla Baldwin who along with her husband founded the museum's popular Art Institute.

As far as I can tell, the book is a platform to celebrate her art (which is quite good) and they added the program histories in order to create a theme to turn it into a complete book. It is kind of a forced theme and in my personal opinion it doesn't really work. I sent a copy to @snowleopard and would be interested to hear his take on it (if he feels like commenting, which he may or may not).
 
Steve Taylor, famous for being the director of Cleveland Zoo for 20 years, wrote a book about his life and it was published last month. Before Cleveland he was the director of Sacramento Zoo and is famous for being a real 'zoo nerd' as he has visited approximately 375 different zoos and aquariums.

Adventures of a Zoo Director

Amazon link:

https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Zoo-Director-Steve-Taylor/dp/1977243940/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34NJHT7URBUF1&keywords=adventures+of+a+zoo+director+steve+taylor&qid=1637297012&sprefix=adventures+of+a+zoo+directo,aps,241&sr=8-1
 
TinoPup said:
There's a new book coming out soon called Zoos of Britain and Ireland. It will include the top 50 zoos with several pages devoted to each, covering the history of each zoo along with highlights of their current collections and things like that. There's also sections on things like bird gardens, zoos & theme parks, Edinburgh Zoo's penguins, and other topics of particular interest. The authors have said it'll be shipped worldwide, with all orders coming from the UK. There's a list of the zoos on the webpage, along with a preview of the book: Zoo Book - Featured Zoos
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The link is not working (anymore) and I can't find any further information on the web. Have you by any chance another source?
 
Tim May said:
This book will certainly be avaliable in the UK from the Natural History Book Service.
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Ah, interesting - the ISBN number wasn't recognised when I tried it on all the usual suspects before, but now it seems to work!
 
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