Books by Richard Porter

A comprehensive and fully revised second edition of the bestselling field guide to the birds of the Middle East. More than 100 new species are included.

Behind the scenes of the global phenomenon Top Gear.

The first comprehensive field guide to the birds of OmanWith its unique blend of Western Palearctic, Oriental and Afrotropical components, and lying on a migratory crossroads, Oman is a jewel of the Middle East. This is the first comprehensive field guide to the birds of this fascinating and welcoming country. All 528 species on the Oman Bird List are featured on the 116 colour plates, illustrating many of the distinct plumages and races, plus a few non-naturalised escapes. Species accounts cover key identification features - including habitat and voice - with colour maps showing the breeding, wintering and migration distributions for all regularly occurring species.

Designing and making cars is an expensive thing to do. So is racing them. All told, the car business spends billions every year and with such vast sums at stake you d think the people involved wouldn t give desk space to Captain Cockup. Sadly, you would be wrong. Every department in every car firm and motorsport operation is capable of complete and abject failure, and on a surprisingly regular basis. Which is what this book is about. You see, Top Gear knows a thing or two about embarrassing mistakes, as anyone who watched our India special will know. The truth is, for many years Top Gear has also regarded failure as funny. Where other television programmes edit out the moment where the presenter falls over or slams their hand in a door, Top Gear gleefully leaves it in. So who better to take you on a gentle canter through 50 of the car world s biggest and most glorious failures? That s right, it s Top Gear. Who else did you think? If you want this sort of stuff from Countryfile you might be in for a wait.