One of the authors is Paul Opler. I just found his blog. There are some posts about how the book was coming along back in 2008.

Here is a link that might be useful: Paul Opler's Blog

Thanks for the heads-up, KC. Even with all the moth images on the Internet, I will be sorely tempted to own this book.

Barnes & Noble info:
pub date 18 May 2009
536 pages
sales rank: 189,210

So it will not appear on the New York Times best-seller list.

Up until about maybe 20 years ago I exchanged research and records with Dr. Paul many times (the data to be used for the Northern Prairie state/county lists, in his books and papers), and did some field work with him in CO. If he follows suit the book won't get past species level though, and that's too bad.

The book probably hit its practical limit at 536 pages and 76 dollars. It will be interesting to see what editorial decisions were made.

The Multnomah County (Oregon) Library has 2 copies on order and my wife has placed the first "hold" on it.

I cannot define "pratical limit" when it comes to bug books but I'll point this one out as one that went bigger:

"American Insects" refers to itself as a "handbook" while it is over 1000 pages and around $100. I don't have one so I don't know if it will fit in my hand :)

Here is a link that might be useful: American Insects: A Handbook of the Insects of North America North of Mexico

Page count has absolutely nothing to do with quality, and so nothing to do with praticality either IMO. Price? Well, there are lepidopteran books out there with really low page counts and only basic text that still sell for several hundred dollars each. Don't think I would call them pratical with the per page price, but they do have a lot of pretty pictures.

Big showy color pictures sell more books than the quality and accuracy of the text unfortunately. There are way more hobby butterfly/moth people out there buying than serious lepidopterists', so a lot of the folks doing the books cater to them for the almighty buck.

If they did good keys and life histories, where this book is really going to shine IMO is the inclusion of all the stinky brown and stinky gray moth familes that most lepidopterists don't bother with or only skim over (which is too bad as some of them have incredible life histories). IOW, there are lots of books out there on the big and/or showy moths (Saturniidae, Sphingidae, Arctiidae, etc), but not much published on all the others.

OK you two, make that MY practical limit!

LOL :)

I ordered it from one of the libraries in the local system. Thanks for the heads up!
-Jmcat

I got a message from Amazon saying my copy won't be showing up until June 30th, at the earliest.

Paul Opler's blog says the official publication date was May 27th but the books have yet to show.

KC,

Not uncommon at all for books to run late of projected publication dates. Paul's a foot dragger sometimes, so he may even be running late.

Need to start selling 4 or 5 or 6 dozen of my lep books one of these days (including my seldom used hardcopy of Scott's BoNA). Don't know where though. Maybe I'll set up a web page one of these days.

Whenever you get ready to sell some, Larry, let me know. I may want to buy some, if I can afford them, that is.
Sherry

Sherry,
I'm sure some of my books are out of print, and so even more desireable than the norm. And the papers are down right rare to impossible to get now (although they are very specific and may not appeal to anyone here). Have no problem giving first refusal to the folks here either once I come up with a way to sell them and do all the work to list them. We can't do ads on the forum - why I have been putting it off and instaed working on selling some of my other interest collections on other sites.
Larry

Unless you have some that aren't "hyper-technical" (I may have coined a word here) then it would be better for them to go to professionals.
I like books with more than just a pretty picture, like information about preferred host plants, information about raising the cats successfully, interesting information about lep/cat behavior, without going into extreme detail, like this or that caterpillar does better at 500' elevation than 600' elevation, if you know what I mean.
Of course, pretty pictures don't hurt! :)
Sherry

The race is on for the Opler book! Multnomah (Oregon) County Library also still in "holding" pattern.

Bump but I think it has already dropped off the list.