The Book of Frogs

“A huge, beautiful compendium of six hundred frogs from around the world, from the famed poison-arrow variety on up to the intriguingly named plaintive rain frog. The book is a looker.” * WIRED, on first edition *“If you are a serious (and I mean serious) fan of the frog, you are in for a real treat. From poisonous frogs to tiny toenail-sized frogs, whistlers, ‘explosive breeders,’ endangered frogs, and recently discovered frogs, [this book] covers an exhaustive gamut of frog species from around the planet. A wonderful source for anyone trying to decipher and learn about frogs they find in nature.” * Boing Boing, on first edition *“An in-depth ecology not of all the world’s frogs and toads, but of a representative fascinating ten percent—what a superb six hundred it is! … The Book of Frogs does a splendid job of showing the diversity of frogs and toads.” * Times Literary Supplement, on first edition *“[A] Glorious, magnificent new behemoth of a book… . A big, beautiful hardcover filled with color photos… . In the book’s mesmerizing master stroke, there’s also a life-sized photo of each frog, from the ones as small as your fingernail to the ones as big as a fat Guinea Pig. It’s a stunning cavalcade, ranging from dull and knobby toads to tree frogs of almost translucent beauty… . It’s a joyous experience to savor the unbridled strangeness, the bursting profusion in The Book of Frogs.” * Open Letters Monthly, on first edition *“Captures both the extraordinary and ordinary of frogs in the same breathless prose that you wrote in love notes to your eighth-grade crush. Couple that with six hundred beautifully composed pictures of sometimes beautiful animals, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a novelty book. In its several months as the centerpiece of my coffee table, The Book of Frogs has generated more conversation than any other item in my apartment. It’s an aesthetic pleasure as an art object, informative as a reference guide.” * Spectrum Culture, on first edition *“Scientific knowledge about frogs has been increasing rapidly. For example, the number of described species has jumped from 5,000 to more than 7,000 in the last fifteen years. At the same time, frogs are a focus of great concern due to severe population declines and extinctions worldwide. This large book … is a photographically rich introduction to the global diversity of frogs.” * Choice, on first edition *“A rich compendium of six hundred frog species, including many that are critically endangered. This taxonomy provides complete distribution, natural history, and conservation status information, as well as life-size photographs for each species, and is laden with fascinating facts that emphasize the diversity of frogs and the many risks to their persistence worldwide.” * Ecology, on first edition *“An extensive compendium of frogs … [with] a wide array of fascinating facts in rich prose… . The real selling point is the full-color photos, showing the actual size of each frog. The Book of Frogs is the perfect coffee table book for anyone with a passing interest in Anura.” * Conservation Biology, on first edition *“This book will be a wonderful source of basic information for any young person who has become fascinated with frogs, or anyone unfamiliar with frogs who has a desire to learn more about their diversity and biology.” * Quarterly Review of Biology, on first edition *

Mark O’Shea MBE is professor of herpetology at the University of Wolverhampton. O’Shea hosted four seasons of O’Shea’s Big Adventure for Animal Planet/Discovery Channel and the UK’s Channel 4. He has conducted fieldwork on numerous tropical expeditions since 1983 and is a fellow of the Explorers’ Club of New York, the Royal Geographical Society, the Linnean Society of London, and the Royal Society of Biology. O’Shea has authored ten books, including The Book of Snakes, also published by the University of Chicago Press. In 2020 he was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours “for services to higher education, zoology, reptile conservation and snakebite research.” He lives in Shropshire, England, twenty miles from the birthplace of Charles Darwin.

Tim Halliday (1945–2019) was one of the world’s foremost authorities on amphibians. He was formerly professor of biology at the Open University and was International Director of the IUCN Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force for thirteen years.