I loved this book. It was quick to read and the beasts mentioned in it were really interesting. I'm a sucker for the strange and unusual so this book really appealed to that side of me. I would love to purchase a copy of the book to have on my own book shelves simply because it is so bizarre. With the bizarre is mystery and reading about animals that may or may not have existed that are just down right peculiar is really fun.

In amongst the bizarre animals mentioned there were also animals that we know and love (or maybe even hate) today. For example, this book spoke of animals such as the Albatross, the ant, the capybara (all of which are still in existence today). It also mentioned that P.T. Barnum (the circus ringmaster) created a mermaid out of monkey bones to fool his audiences.

This book is based on the medieval encyclopaedias called beasteries so therefore we get a little insight into an era far beyond our reach today.

What more can I say other than I believe this book would be a great addition to anyone's home library purely because its contents marries the bizarre with the 'normal' so well. ( )

I have no idea how Largo picked the animals that he put in the book. It runs from ants and bears to extinct animals like the dodo and the tyrannosaurus rex, there are myths and legends like the phoenix and trolls and cryptids like the chupacabra and the Jersey devil. There is a little bit of everything. There are animals I am familiar with and ones I have never heard of before. I learned a lot of new things even about the animals I thought I knew well. You get from a few paragraphs to a few pages about each animal. There is information like life span and habitat and more specific information like how many times a woodpecker will bang his head against a tree in one day. He explores were myths about animals (even real ones) started and what animal might have been misidentified to start rumors of nonexistent animals. If you are doing some kind of research I don’t know how much this would help you. But if you just like to learn about animals it is a great book to visit off and on and read an entry or two. ( )