Jonathan Elphick
鈥淎s always, I have more books to read than time in which to enjoy them,鈥� says
Jonathan Elphick, ornithologist and author of The Birdwatcher鈥檚 Handbook
(BBC, 2001). He鈥檚 been working his way through monographs on seabird biology for his
forthcoming volume Seabirds, in the World of Birds encyclopedia
(Grolier, 2003), as well as a shelf of reference works for two new Natural History
Museum books he鈥檚 edited鈥擝ats by Phil Richardson and Sharks
by Michael Bright (both 2002).
But it鈥檚 not all work. He鈥檚 finishing The Surgeon鈥檚 Mate by Patrick O鈥橞rian
(HarperCollins, 1989), one of the series of novels about the exploits of the
British naval Captain Jack Aubrey and his surgeon Stephen Maturin during the
Napoleonic Wars. O鈥橞rian, like Maturin, was a keen ornithologist, and Elphick
says the accounts of birds and other wildlife are refreshingly accurate. He also
got round to reading Mark Cocker鈥檚 Birders (Jonathan Cape, 2001), 鈥渁 beautifully
written account of the love affair between humans and birds鈥�. He enjoyed it
immensely, 鈥渘ot least because of knowing almost all of its avian characters and
some of the human ones鈥�.
David Bellamy
Environmentalist and botanist David Bellamy is stuck into Nature鈥檚 Building
Blocks (Oxford University Press, 2001), John Emsley鈥檚 guide to the 118 elements
in the periodic table. 鈥淚 had it for Christmas and I can鈥檛 put it down.鈥�
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He鈥檚 also reading Darwin鈥檚 The Origin of Species (Penguin, 1982), Malay
Archipelago by Alfred Russell Wallace (Macmillan, 1869) and Almost Like a Whale:
The origin of species updated by Steve Jones (Doubleday, 1999). All three books
assert the theory of evolution. 鈥淭hey all say the same thing and give me hope
for the world,鈥� says Bellamy.