SC - Stromberg's "Poultry of the World"

[Michael F. Gunter]

I'm forwarding this on as it was BOUNCED the first time.

Gunthar

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Johann, poltrier, writes:
 I have now read the book and the review of it that follows. For those
of you who may be tempted to raise your own fowl, DO SO!! But, DON'T
read this book!!
  Some of it's bloopers drove a certain naturalist and Audoubonist
around the bend!!
Johann,

http://www.cyborganic.net/People/feathersite/Books/stromberg.html

            Book Review: "Poultry of the World"  by Loyl Stromberg

Well folks, I've just had an opportunity to go through Loyl Stromberg's
book
"Poultry of the World".

I have never found such a collection of bad grammar, typos,
misidentified and confusing illustrations,
and misinformation gathered together in any book I've ever encountered.
Consider this a brief book
review. A long one would drive me up the wall. As a fairly knowledgable
poultry person, I get chills
when I think of the "facts" now being distributed to the unaware
public.  Lots of photos, tho', if
you want to guess what they are. I'm willing to admit that more than
half are probably correctly
identified, but when the description of the breed includes a single comb
and the photo has a crested
bird with no comb visible at all it sure does make you wonder. And
there's a really nice photo of a
Grey (Sonnerat's) Jungle Fowl--as long as you don't mind that it's
labeled Green Jungle Fowl (a
different species). In one case there's a crested bird labeled as an
Araucana (true to the British
standard, but not the American). And in many cases
a breed will be mentioned but won't be described in any useful way at
all. A very frustrating
experience, this book was!

        The worst thing for me is that I don't feel that I can trust
anything in this book.
There are so
many inaccuracies, in both text and pictures, that if I'm not sure of
something I certainly wouldn't
look here to get the answer. And I can't even recommend spending $80 on
the book for the pictures. As
a coffee table book it is sorely lacking also, the volume being only 6
inches by 9 1/2 inches. The
majority of the illustrations are neither very
clear nor large enough to be interesting to people who don't already
know poultry fairly well. I
fear that I can't find any good reason to suggest buying this book, and
can find a fair number of
reasons to go spend your money elsewhere--maybe buy that expensive trio
of Buff Cochins you decided
you really couldn't afford. It'll make you much happier.

    Stromberg admits that he is neither a breeder, nor exhibitor, nor
back-yarder, yet
here he has
written a book on all of these areas. He doesn't have anyone edit his
material, neither an editor
who knows the language nor an editor who knows poultry.  And he
publishes through a publisher who
clearly doesn't use either an editor, a designer, or a proofreader. I
have a bunch of his earlier
books, mostly gotten when I was a beginner. I find that they all fit the
pattern of being both
moderately misinformative and unindexed, so that when you do want to use
them you can't find the
information anyway. It seems to me that the areas in which he has more
solid info are the areas
leaning towards commercial poultry, not in the areas of breeds or
raising poultry. But I'm not
trying to flame him, just giving a book review, which happens to be
mostly a negative one. I know
the man does good things for the poultry fancy, such as the Poultry
Museum and his yearly poultry
trips abroad. I just wish he'd let
other people write the books.


Direct questions and comments to Barry at "featherside at cyborganic.net"

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