A couple of months ago we found ourselves discussing Ball’s Pyramid of Lord Howe Island with John Hoover, 
the author of the Ultimate Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes. Right about the time we figured out that John is a real fish head is when he told us that he had just authored a new book on Hawaiian reef fish. Our first thought was ‘what do we need another book on Hawaiian fish for?’ Ultimate Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes has 388 pages and it’s only $20 on Amazon so at only $0.05 per page, the new book seemed like a bargain no matter what. The book has been casually glanced at for the last few weeks and aside from having really good and numerous pictures of each fish species, at first it seemed like just another really good ID book. When Paul shared with us his fresh pictures of Hawaiian Reef Fish this morning, I reached for Hoover’s Ultimate Guide to see what kind of general information there was about the ornate butterflyfish and the rectangulus triggerifish. To our surprise each species is not only described and beautifully illustrated but each one is accompanies by small windows of interesting information regarding many of the species in the book; such as the coral feeding preferences of Hawaiian butterflyfish and the interesting populist movement behind the naming of humu-humu-nuku-nuku-apua’a as the Hawaii state fish. Between the heft of the content, the abundance of beautiful images, the breadth of rare and common species covered and the numerous story windows, Hoover’s Ultimate Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes delivers a very comprehensive text. This is one of the first additions to our aquarium library in a long time but it’s also one of the best.
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