Having read previous discussion re possible titles I know there have been many suggestions.

However, a title I would love to see published would be British Molluscs and Crustaceans or perhaps The Lobster.

Andy,

If Collins decided to publish a title on Molluscs and Crustaceans, I suspect that this would be included in the main series, just as we have Bumblebees, Dragonflies or the earlier Birds of Prey, Thrushes etc.

On a more general note, I'm wondering whether there really is any chance of Collins launching new monographs, based purely on the likelihood of commercial success.   I can understand why participants in this forum would like to see the series resurrected but being realistic, how many people do you think would purchase a natural history of a single species such as the wren, the yellow wagtail, the oyster or the herring gull, if it was published today?   I know that these books were relatively successful when first published but that was about 50 years ago, and natural history publishing is very different today.   There are many more specialist publishers (e.g. Poyser), research papers are more widely published (e.g. Bird Study, British Birds, Atropos) and there's a wealth of information on the internet.   It's a crowded space!

Putting it a different way, if I wasn't a collector of the NN series (including the monographs) with an almost obsessive drive to build and maintain a complete collection, would I buy a copy of a book on The Lobster or many of the other titles already published?   Almost certainly not.

OK, I certainly cannot claim to be a typical NN collector (as I don't actually know many others) but I do mix with lots of other amateur nauralists and interested public through my membership of local natural history societies and I have some idea of the type of books they are buying and reading.

Whatever our gripes with Collins, we must be realistic and accept that whatever they decide to publish, the decision will be based upon likely success and profitability ... and regretably, I cannot see monographs falling into that category.

Bill

Best

Alex
Collins