Absolutely stunning photos, this book is an absolutely beautiful study of bear photography. It is nicely broken up into chapters about types of different bears etc but the main focus and reason for the book is the photos which I cannot overemphasise how beautiful this is, and the last set are of cubs. Just simply stunning, a highly recommended book to bear and nature lovers


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

A wonderful collection and description of the variety of bears around the world. Separated into discussion of the types of bears, then habitat, the book flows quite easily and is a true pleasure to read. Did make me pause though when mentioned possible encounters, and the author wishes the reader good luck! Hmm. Family pictures were fun, and it surprised me that several mothers had their cubs on their backs. Didn't realize that was a common carry position. And the final chapter is photos of cubs. Awwww. Highly recommend this book, as it was fun to read and hard to put down. If you have any interest in bears around the world this book is for you.

This was what I expected, having met with this publisher's succinctly titled and thoroughly pictorial animal books before now. We have a chunk of this book to survey the different species of true bear (including the giant panda), and then scattershot ones concerning their habitats and habits, and family life, which were fine but did jump willy-nilly from species to species in a most unstructured way. And as usual with these books, we close with the final chapter on the babies, for added cutesiness. The illustrations here are of the usual supreme standard, and in family friendly fashion show no mating, bloody hunting or killing of prey or anything else the usual nature documentary on TV might show. Short captions for the photos, which are generally the only text, are of the usual high standard too – some books in the series might be guilty of too much repetition, but this is not the case here. I still think the publisher is doing itself a disservice by giving books like this just a one-word title and leaving it at that – search for this specifically, without its kind-of subtitle, and you'll get fed up of scrolling past Goldilocks, for one thing. I hope I'm wrong, mind – any bear lover of pretty much any age would welcome this to browse.