Garden Insects of North America: The Ultimate Guide to Backyard Bugs (Princeton Field Guides) Paperback – March 28, 2004

This is a huge, heavy book full of color pictures and lots of good information about garden insects. The weight makes it more of an indoor reference—take a picture of the bugs in your garden then come in to learn about them. The book appears to be very thorough.

I was shocked at the size of this book, thought it would be like those little pocket ones. It's a nice thick size, with TONS of photos and information on every insect in North America! As a Master Gardener trainee, this book will come in useful helping me identify insects. So glad that I bought it!!!

The book is superb, but could be easier to use, so four stars rather than five. The photographs and other graphic elements are quite good, as one would expect from this excellent publisher.There are two problems in using the book. It is fairly large but the quality of paper makes it rather heavy, so the book cannot easily be taken out in the bean patch to identify who is nibbling there. Possibly a small wheel barrel would help. More seriously, finding your culprit takes some work. The easiest way would be to look for category of damage and then browse, using the chapters designated leaf eater, leaf miner and so on. Or, just skim through the pictures.It might be easier to get a cheap guide and make a preliminary identification then go to this book and look for detail. Photos are on the right handed page, descriptions on the left. The descriptions are not particularly compelling reading, but then you're not doing this for fun. They are brief, and include very brief descriptions of damage the bug does. There is a shorter section on beneficial insects, that is worth a look, but 80% of the book, or more, is garden gobblers, and that is a lot in a 600 page book.

I am a garden hobbiest and like to know what unusual insects I come in contact are and have found this book is better than relying on internet searches, at least for me. I have had it for several years and will keep it for a long time to come.

The pictures and text make it reasonably easy to ID pests & what they do to plants. The books organization is based on what they do to plants so seeing a bug doing something is your guide to finding out about that bug. Their life history gives useful info. A whole section on beneficial bugs helps one to encourage those so they can get the bad bugs.A super resource!

I am sad to say that I finally am reading this book - and got to a middle chapter and there is a manufacturing defect. An entire chapter has wrinkled pages. Makes it hard to enjoy as I bought this book with the intention of keeping it forever and in great condition. Naturally I am past the return unless Amazon or the publisher makes it right.Otherwise, it's an amazing book and I love all the photos and information in it!

This guide has wonderful color pictures of various stages of plant pests, and concise descriptions of their life cycles. Because of the completeness of the coverage of the 1400+ insects ,there is very limited advice re: what to do to get rid of (or manage) these pests. However, this book does an admirable job of covering the main concern which is being able to identify the pests/problems and after identification to take that information and search for remedies. In addition to common names of insects, information also includes the scientific names which may bewilder some and delight others. The books pages are high quality and it is quite heavy, so inclusion of additional information RE: control methods etc. would make it unwieldy and unpleasant to try to use. I recommend use of the book on a table to keep from dropping it: It is difficult to handle when carried in hand/out of the house and that is the only reason I wouldn't give it 5 stars.

I love this book! Invaluable in the garden. I highly recommend buying this.

A must have for every gardener and insect lover, it is a great reference book and would recommend it others.

8 year old grandson is very taken with this book. He refers to it and explores within it again and again.

High quality photography, very well written!

Useful for common garden bugs!

Excellent summaries for each insect. Helpful description of life cycles. Clear photos. Used for market garden integrated pest control.Good to identify unknown critters.