Primates of the World: An illustrated guide

A translation of a French text published in 2010, this reasonably slender but sturdy hardback sets out to be a comprehensive guide to our closest cousins in the animal world: the primates. The heavy paper stock makes this an attractive package, though the cover is a little bland. The main body of the text is broken into three parts: a cultural and historical grounding, an explanation of the classification of primates and finally the plates and descriptions of the species themselves. It, therefore, seems fitting to breakdown the review the same way.

The first part of the book, called Fascinating...