Animal Books
Buy and sell animal books in Guatemala.
Most of the bird guides that cover Guatemala are printed abroad and in English, so a good copy tends to pass from one birder to the next rather than being bought fresh. Animal books run from field guides to birds, reptiles and mammals to dog-training manuals, aquarium handbooks and the encyclopedias and picture books children work through and then outgrow, new and pre-owned, in Spanish and English. With a field guide, a photo of the colour plates tells a buyer more than a photo of the cover. With a children’s book, say whether every flap and pop-up still works.
Bird guides that cover Guatemala, and the one that covers nowhere else:
three books do most of the work for birders here. Fagan and Komar’s Peterson guide to northern Central America takes in Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador and fits a jacket pocket. Vallely and Dyer’s Birds of Central America runs on to Panama, so it is heavier but the one to have if the trip carries on south. Howell and Webb’s guide to Mexico and northern Central America was the standard for years and still has the most text, though its bird names have dated and it is a book that stays in the car. All three are in English. In Spanish, Peterson and Chalif’s Aves de México also covers Guatemala, and Hugh Land’s Birds of Guatemala, the only field guide written for this country alone, is long out of print and sought as a collector’s book.
A pocket guide or the full volume for the Verapaces and the coast:
the highland birds Guatemala shares only with Chiapas, such as the pink-headed warbler and the horned guan, are in every regional guide, so the choice comes down to weight and how much each one tells you. For a weekend split between the cloud forest of the Verapaces, where people go for the quetzal, and the mangroves at Monterrico, the compact guide is enough. For naming a bird you photographed and could not place, the long descriptions in the old heavy guide earn their shelf space.
Dog manuals age slowly, aquarium handbooks do not:
the training advice in a dog book dates slowly, while aquarium and pet-care handbooks recommend filters and kit that have since been replaced, so check the year on those before you pay. Children’s animal books are a shelf of their own, from chunky board books for toddlers to the illustrated encyclopedias of DK and National Geographic Kids. Animal colouring books are filed with the coloring books, and a trail guide that lists a few birds belongs in outdoor books.
What a bird guide is worth once it has been used:
a current regional bird guide costs roughly Q300 to Q600 new, the compact northern guide at the lower end and the full isthmus volume at the top. With a used one, the edition sets the price far more than the wear does. A clean copy of the current edition loses little, because nothing in it has gone out of date. A guide from the 1990s sells for much less however good it looks, because many birds have been split or renamed since it went to print.
Where a field guide wears out, and where a board book does:
a field guide goes at the plates. It is opened flat at the same pages again and again, so check the binding where the colour plates sit and look for plates that have come loose or cracked along the spine. A checklist ticked in pen is normal and costs a copy very little. Children’s books fail elsewhere: board-book corners chewed soft, flaps torn off, pop-ups that no longer stand up, and sound buttons whose batteries cannot always be changed.
Who has a bird guide to spare, and what to tell the next owner:
bird guides come up when a visiting researcher or volunteer leaves the country, when a birder moves to the newer guide, and when a family finds an old Howell and Webb on the shelf. Give the title, the authors and the year of the edition, say whether it is paperback or hardback, and photograph a spread of plates so a buyer can judge the binding and the colour. For children’s books, give the age they suit and say whether every flap and button works. Someone planning a trip to the Verapaces wants the guide before they set off, so say when and where in the city you can hand it over.