What's a good Spider Guide

"Field Guide to the Spiders of California and the Pacific Coast States" by RJ Adams & Tim Manolis just came out. I pre-ordered it almost a year ago, knowing it was going to be good and I was not disappointed! The color drawings are excellent and so is the info. A portion of the species covered in it may only be found in California, but the majority are also found in Oregon and Washington. (I'm in WA, too.)

Another recent/newer field guide that is larger, and covers more species, is Rich Bradley's "Common Spiders of North America." The color plates and info in that one are amazing, too! There are even some keys for identification.

I think that BugGuide pretty much trumps any paper field guide, though! You will never get to see the coverage and variety of species anywhere else. Printed books are typically limited in the number of species they can cover, whereas BugGuide has no limits. I would browse the spider section here over and over again and you will get familiar with the characteristics that define each family. It's a really quick way to get familiar with spider morphology. Pretty soon, you'll recognize which family something belongs in, and then which genus, etc...

Bugguide is your best website reference. You have a wonderful reference in Rod Crawford if you live close enough to take your spider to him. A really good general inexpensive book is Levi's Spiders and their Kin(1). If you need more detailed books I can suggest more.

and move it to the spider forum where you can talk directly to the spider folks here.