London: A&C Black Publishers, ltd., 2010. - 528 p. ISBN 978-1-4081-3873-1.Having cut my ornithological teeth on a diet of bird books dedicated to the British avifauna, my introduction to Peterson, Mountfort and Hollom’s Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe was a revelation. For the first time I could feast my eyes on the exciting birds living just beyond the confines of my home country. I could read about them, and in particular dream of encountering them; in some measure I was able to prepare myself for birds that I had not seen, but that I might see. A generation later, Svensson, Grant, Mullarney and Zetterström in theCollins Bird Guide(1999) set a new standard in Europe that few will ever match, let alone supersede. The significance of such regional guidebooks is that they open the eyes of local birdwatchers to the possibilities beyond their own national borders, and provide information on species that may one day appear on their own local or national patch. These have been my aims in Birds of East Asia; to describe and illustrate all species that have occurred in the region (c.985), and to suggest those extralimital species and vagrants most likely to appear in the near future, so as to encourage birdwatchers living in the region to think of birds from beyond the immediate horizon. In so doing I hope to bring some of those birdwatchers together in a fraternity of observing and conserving the avifauna of this fascinating region. Birds of East Asia has also been designed with the particular interests of birders in Europe and North America in mind, in the hope of facilitating the identification of vagrants to those areas from the region.