I had this book in my Amazon cart months before I placed the order. Why? Well, I simply couldn't justify the price tag. At a whopping $56 it was hard to image how much value I could really get out of it. It was only after I purchased the much more affordable and pocket-sized "Pacific Reef & Shore" and realized how much I actually did use a book to identify marine life, that I decided it would be an investment.

I’ve started writing about what is possibly one of my favorite marine creatures: the nudibranch, and more specifically, the Red...