At the time of publication, this was one of the most definitive compilations on Architeuthis. Alas, that was 1998, and this book is now showing its age, but it's still a very good survey of the historical and cultural accounts of the giant squid. I checked this out shortly after the Discovery special aired January 27th, 2013 because I was curious about previous information in deadtree edition. Also swore to actually finish an Ellis book because I frequently check them out, but never get to them in time.

Besides the obvious change from no live sightings until last year, the other science/technological difference I noticed is that while discussing how many species there could possibly be within Architeuthis, gene sequencing was never mentioned as a tool. All proposed species were based on morphology, and even then those could be variations between indivduals, life stages, etc... but now that we have the power of sequencers, could we check out preserved specimens and discern patterns? Probably, and that's probably been written about elsewhere but I haven't gotten to it yet.

The species now known as the colossal squid is also mentioned, but not by that name- Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni was the only one given, no common name at that point, only known by Antarctic carcasses. Another interesting thing- Architeuthis sightings and carcasses mentioned are predominantly in the Atlantic, with some in New Zealand but only a handful mentioned in the northern Pacific (which is where footage of live giants have been obtained).

Still, a very interesting read, especially for the historical and mythological contexts of monstrously large cephalopod sightings and then-speculation as to what the living creature might actually be like. ( )

When this book was published, no one had ever seen a living giant squid in its natural habitat. Much like the Colossal Squid today, we'd seen dead and dying ones and remnants in predator's stomachs, but never the real thing. Ellis's book paints a fascinating picture of this elusive creature and its understudied deep ocean habitat. ( )

After reading Peter Benchley’s Beast I starting getting more and more interested in Giant Squid. With this in mind I bought ‘The search for the Giant squid’.

To be totally honest I was hoping for more tales of encounters and the mythology surrounding the squid. Instead the book ran like an encyclopaedia with whole paragraphs being dedicated to just figures and statistics.

A whole chapter is dedicated to why the squid is called so many different things by different people… yawn!

A lot of the book I just scanned picking out the various interesting bits of data. A lot of what is covered has been long outdated or just proven wrong. If you want a quick and interesting read give this a miss and have a quick look on wiki, also saving a few quid in the process. ( )

An excellent book for those interested in the giant monsters of the sea. They are real. It covers the search for specimens, proper Linnean Binomial classification, biology, myths and much more. Enjoy! ( )

I approached this completely ignorant of the subject, but came away not feeling any more informed. There is a plethora of accounts of sightings throughout the book, but they are all much the same and the feeling of deja-vu soon came over me. The subject itself is fascinating, but the lack of definitive knowledge means the book degenerates into a literature review. Extremely disappointing. ( )