The Butterfly Isles, Patrick Barkham

Reviewing now, not at the end of the month, because I feel like it! This is a non-fiction narrative about butterflies in Britain and Northern Ireland: it is not a reference book, although there are excellent colour plates. As I know the author, and in fact my copy is signed by both the author and the dedicatee, we can take it that the text is charming, wise and funny and that everyone should buy a copy, preferably several copies. (The hardback is ISBN 9781847081278, while the paperback is due in May 2011).

Passing on to the volume itself and the apparatus surrounding the text: the index and bibliography are excellent, the reference list is acceptable (chapter references are given in endnotes, which are not marked within the text), and the endpapers are really lovely. The bookblock has glued, not sewn, signatures, but then I can't remember the last new book I bought that had sewn signatures, and the book is a pleasure to hold, open and read. While I can't identify the book designer, it's a Granta book and their art and production directors are to be very highly commended. I'm probably going to give this as gifts to a few people this year - an urban couple in Finsbury Park and a beekeeper in Edinburgh certainly leap to mind.