I love collecting & buying various wildlife books, but there's one series of books that I'm always on the look out for - The Shires - for those who don't know, each book is written by someone new, each book is around £2.50 & each book concentrates on just one animal or bird.

In my collection so far - so it'll give you an idea what's available - I have:

The Avocet, The Barn owl, The Song Thrush, The Blackbird, The Wren, The Gannet, The Golden Eage, The Hedgehog, The Mole, The Brown Hare, Hawk-Moths of the British Isles, Butterflies The Lycaenidae, then Heavy Horses & British Cattle.

They also do a whole range of books on other subjects like buildings & textiles, a full list can be found on their website:

http://www.shirebooks.co.uk/

Anyone else collect these little gems?

Nothing on British Bicycles!

Although many of the titles do sound quite interesting. I don't think I have ever seen any of these here in the US.

Kingfisher

hi skylark
the books you have remind me of the observer's books i used to collect many years ago i wish i had looked after them better as they are quite collectable now and very sort after.

I haven't seen this books around but they sound like great little treats at such a cheap price. What kind of style are they written in? I mean is it all facts about the animal or does it go into how they live and what they get up too?

It goes into the whole works - plus anything surrounding their names & their folklore - it depends who writes them, as it's always a different author every time. As they're so reasonably priced I would recommend you buy one! I found another one today - all about the Puffin!

Yes they are, there's even an "Observers Book of Observers Books"

What about the New Naturalist series? Some of their volumes are worth in excess of £1000!

So all of these books are really good for collecting if nothing else! You never know! lol

Those books look good Skylark, and a real bargain too, I must look out for them.

So all of these books are really good for collecting if nothing else! You never know! lol

If you're going to collect them, they need to be first editions in fine condition with fine dustjackets that are not faded on the spine. Where I work, we sell 2nd hand (as well as new) natural history books. We frequently get people wanting to sell us their "excellent condition" books which, once we've examined them, turn out to be far from excellent, with faded dustjackets or none at all, which reduces the value considerably.

If you collect books, then put them away in a light proof place and never, never open them to read. Perhaps in 50 years time they might be worth a small fortune