Heiko Bleher's recent book "Bleher's Biotopes"

[Fundulopanchax]

I am always most interested at aquarium society meetings and in reading new aquarium magazines with presentations and articles that show photos from the field, particularly in travelogue format. Those of you who follow Bleher's "Discus Book" series are familiar with the format of his travelogues and you have seen the biotope aquaria he sets up. I received a copy of his new book today, which intends to summarize his more than 900 expeditions beginning in the early 1950s with his mother (there is a photo of him delivering his first fish shipment to an oceanliner in 1953) and extending to today with photos and biotope aquaria he has set up to recreate each area. The book is 450 pages plus index in length with most pages having 4-10 photos so his claim that the book contains "thousands of photos" is certainly true. It is divided into geographical areas: Africa, Asia, North America, Central America, South America covers each with specific expeditions and trips (he uses the term expedition but a visit to Galveston TX, while it is exotic to a New Englander like me, is more of a trip I think; when I visited a few years ago, I found quite a few hotels and restaurants so tents and living off the rivers was not strictly necessary). There are many excellent photos. I enjoyed the many images of local habitats and people and of course the fish, and a few shrimp and plants. An excellent if expensive book (Euro 89 from Aquapress-Bleher; $205 from Amazon) if you like the travelogue style, which I do. For the folks who want to see discus they only appear on 5 pages, the first being p 383.

Ron

[YSS]

I have heard about this book and wanted to get a copy. I just learned that Discusbook 05 will be available soon and was thinking about another group order for simply and was thinking may be ordering "Bleher's Biotopes" as well to reduce the shipping cost. Shipping from Italy is very expensive for books like that and Amazon price reflects that. I'm a big Heiko fan. Don't know anyone else who has contributed as much as Heiko did for the hobby.

[Fundulopanchax]

Count me in for the Discus Book 5 group buy!

Ron

[Second Hand Pat]

Yun, it would be awesome if you did that again. I would be in for both books.
Pat