SKUNK AND BADGER :: Amy Timberlake

With adorable illustrations by Jon Klasson, Amy Timberlake's Skunk and Badger is a lovely story of friendship, sharing and compromise. I was drawn in by a connection with Badger, a curmudgeonly rock scientist living in his Aunt Lula's den surrounded by geodes and a rock tumbler, doing very important rock work (sounds pretty awesome). Badger doesn't have much besides rocks and his work, but he doesn't realize life has more to offer until Skunk comes knocking on his door, suitcase in hand.

Seems Aunt Lula has also offered Skunk a room in her brownstone, though Badger has been too busy doing his important rock work to read her last several letters. Badger is put out by Skunk's presence, initially trying to pass off a closet as the luxury guest quarters. He soon finds life with Skunk isn't all bad, particularly at mealtimes (breakfast hot chocolate!).

Of course not all goes smoothly and soon Badger is surrounded not only by Skunk, but hundreds of chickens  (because that's what happens when you blow the chicken whistle), a treacherous stoat and some odors that are not as wonderful as breakfast hot chocolate.

I adored the drawings interspersed throughout the book, particularly Skunk reading under the covers of his room in the moonlight. Although there are certain conflicts between species (stoats and chickens apparently can't bridge the gap, for instance), there is never any discussion about inter-species relationships. Aunt Lula, for instance, is a pine marten. There is just family and friends and roommates and some natural enemies, language barriers be damned. Also, CHICKENS IN BELL-BOTTOMS.

Geared for grades 2-5, which I am decidedly not, Skunk and Badger is a worthy tale for all ages. Timberlake is a Newbery Honor recipient and Klassen a Caldecott Medalist, coming together to show how we can all be better together.

THE ACCIDENTAL VETERINARIAN :: Philipp Schott

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Like most children, Canadian Philipp Schott was fascinated with animals. Other than "Bobo the Christmas Gerbil," however, he didn't grow up with pets. He had never even set foot in a clinic when electing studies at University of Saskatchewan. Yet proceeding through the catalogue, he eliminated courses until left with the last on the alphabetical list, Veterinary Medicine.

Two decades into his "chosen" vocation, Schott has a second somewhat accidental career as a writer. The Accidental Veterinarian shares Schott's stories of getting past his self-consciousness dealing with people to create a thriving practice of his own (clearly and empathetically communicating with owners being an axiomatic prerequisite--sometimes frustrating, often hilarious--to a vet helping the creatures they love).

Originally writing about travel and whiskey as an outlet from work, Schott found veterinary medicine "a story machine" and eventually began a blog in which many of these pieces originally appeared. Separated into four parts (the making of a vet, the art of veterinary medicine, its science and "peculiar tales"), Schott covers a vast range of practical, funny, difficult and gross elements of practice and pet ownership.

Schott's writing is engagingly conversational and showcases his colorful sense of humor ("chocolate vomit holds a special place near the apex of the devil's perfumery"). Importantly, he does not gloss over the vast emotional costs, delving into "black coat" (euthanasia) days and high suicide rates. Educational, entertaining and compassionate, this confluence of happy accidents is a must-read for anyone who is, loves or works with a veterinarian.

STREET SENSE: This set of short anecdotes is warm, funny, poignant and educational. Any animal lover will be pleased.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  A routine part of small animal practice is recommending dental work and then having the pet owner react as if you have just recommended Spanish guitar lessons for their dog or a set of encyclopedias for their cat. Some people view veterinary dentistry as evidence that we've gone too far in treating pets like people. These people (thankfully increasingly a minority, but a very annoying one) put it in the same category as pink leather jackets for chihuahuas and spa days for cats.

(See? Funny and informative. Preventive dentistry is important, yo!)

COVER NERD SAYS: A cover after mine own heart. stark, clean, orderly (all antithesis to veterinary practice, interestingly), pretty palette and adorable puppy. This cover perfectly captures the fact that this book is serious yet impish. Perfection.

HERO DOGS :: Wilma Melville

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is reprinted here with permission.

The 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., killed 168 people. When retired teacher and grandmother of six Wilma Melville showed up with her search-and-rescue dog Murphy, there wasn't much to be done. At the time, there was a woeful nationwide shortage of search teams--only 15, a fraction of what was needed. Knowing more dogs would save lives, Melville created the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation with an unspoken goal of certifying 168 SAR teams--one for each soul lost in Oklahoma City.

Hero Dogs: How a Pack of Rescues, Rejects, and Strays Became America's Greatest Disaster-Search Partners is the astonishing story of how one tenacious woman, helped by a legendary dog trainer and some willing firefighters, fashioned a three-dog pilot program that revolutionized disaster response. Without funding for selectively bred dogs, Wilma was forced to turn to the rejected and allegedly defective. Though she "[doesn't] exactly share their sense of humor," Wilma ended up with three golden retrievers--a twice-rejected guide dog that terrorized wheelchair users, an abused stray and a washed-out field trial competitor.

With co-author Paul Lobo, Melville shares her story in straight-talking prose that evokes the tension and emotion reflective of the high stakes. She is also slyly funny, ironic considering her position on golden retrievers. When the pilot teams are thrust into the national limelight during their first real-life disaster on 9/11, the results are both triumphant and throat-closing. A fascinating read for animal lovers, thrill-seekers and rescue-hounds alike, Melville's work is proof that some good can rise from the ashes of catastrophe.

STREET SENSE: Even as a lifetime dog lover, owner and trainer I was not really expecting to be as fascinated with this book as I was. It goes a little deep into training, but I don't think one has to be interested or proficient in dog training to "get it," particularly with the the stakes at hand. Despite Wilma's tough-as-nails veneer, she cracked me up regularly, intentionally or not. (For example: "So I did what anybody does when you need a meeting with one of the highest-ranking OES officials in the state--I kidnapped him.") This is one I'll keep on my shelf.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: When they weren't searching, the dogs became the face of relief for the other rescue workers. They were the unofficial therapy dogs of Ground Zero. When you traverse a landscape of destruction for twelve hours a day, where everything wants to cut you and a misstep could mean serious injury, a soft, warm creature is a welcome sight. When your daily mission involves scouring destruction trying to find anybody alive, a friendly snout and a soul who will do nothing but sit by your side is more powerful than any medicine. The dogs provided hope and a return to normalcy.

COVER NERD SAYS: I'm not sure how I feel about this cover, which probably means it lands in the category of "accurate and serviceable but the content called for more." I'm not sure there's anything about this image or the font to set the book off from another dog book. The rubble pile is dramatic, the dogs beautiful, but perhaps a more urgent skyline would have given it some pop. Despite the sometimes difficult subject matter, it is a story of hope and resilience, so maybe that was the aim. It's a solid cover, no doubt, I just wanted a bit more for these incredible creatures.

LOYAL :: Rebecca Ascher-Walsh

Those of us lucky enough to have a dog (or two, or more), particularly a therapy or service dog, are so used to being surrounded by the cocoon of support the relationship provides that we begin to become inured to just how special those bonds can be. It's not that we take them for granted, it's that we semi-forgot what it's like to be without them.

We can all stand to be reminded just how far and wide the bonds between canine and human can be stretched. Dogs are infinity, and in Loyal: 38 Inspiring Tales of Bravery, Heroism, and the Devotion of Dogs, Rebecca Ascher-Walsh provides 38 fabulous reminders of just how lucky we humans are to have such willing and capable companions.

Journalist Ascher-Walsh is also the founder of the Deja Foundation, an organization that works with rescue groups to assist with the adoption of dogs from high-kill shelters. In writing the prequel to Loyal, a book entitled Devoted: 38 Extraordinary Tales of Love, Loyalty, and Life With Dogs, Ascher-Walsh learned that dogs do more than provide comfort to individuals at the end of a long day. Dogs connect us and bring us together as a larger community. Loyal was borne of that ideation.

Using stories about more than fifteen different breeds (or mixes) of dogs scattered across 21 of the United States (with stops in Puerto Rico and Australia for good measure), Ascher-Walsh shows how dogs better our lives by helping us create better and more diverse communities in myriad ways. Dogs provide assistance that allows a wide variety of individuals to gain (or regain) ground previously unavailable, including kids and adults limited by medical conditions, emotional needs, or physical restrictions. And they guard penguins to boot.

Dogs also help prove we all have a place in the world. The dogs highlighted in Loyal are not all perfect breed standards or dogs raised and trained to provide service. They are also dogs thrown away and found in high-kill shelters, dogs with deformities and physical limitations of their own, dogs trained by prison inmates and dogs who simply proved a knack for a service that could not be denied (i.e., honing in on people who have cancer).

The most fervent dog fan will still learn something from Loyal. If you knew about Conservation Canines, raise your hand. This program at the University of Washington turns rescue dogs into detectives helping to locate endangered species for identification and study. If you knew that one, I know I'll stump you with PHARM Dog USA, a Missouri non-profit that trains dogs to work with disabled farmers. The boundaries of the dog/human connection seem boundless, but Loyal is a great cross-section of the realm of possibilities.

The book itself is really well done, what we have come to expect from a National Geographic publication. It's what I would consider a coffee table book despite it's somewhat diminutive size, perfect for a corner display where it can be flipped through at leisure. The glossy pages are full of color photographs and numerous side columns containing breed facts or general dog-related information. Loyal would be a perfect gift for a special dog person in your life, or anyone who is interested in the world of human-animal connections.

I was lucky enough to be asked to be part of a the blog tour for Loyal set up by Trish at TLC Book Tours. A list of all the bloggers who are chiming in on this lovely book can be found here.

STREET SENSE: A fun, feel-good, and informative look into the world of canine assistance and how dogs allow us to create better communities.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  I loved this passage about pit bull service dog Jericho, since it is a myth-buster when it comes to the way many people unfortunately view the breed:

When Smith's Maryland home was invaded in the middle of the night, Jericho alerted Smith to the fact that something was wrong. Since Jericho was naturally a quiet dog, Smith had had to train him to bark. So when Jericho barked that night, Smith knew something was wrong. Smith went to the door, and a man started pushing his way into the house. "We were fighting--I was beating him with my crutch, and it was getting louder," Smith describes. "Jericho ran behind my wife and peed on the floor."

COVER NERD SAYS:  Spare and to the point, the cover image of a gorgeous black lab is tough to fault. The theme does feel a bit patriotic to the United States (blue background; red, white and blue collar and red, white and blue ribbon with stars on it), which may provide a bit too much of a military feel to it, particularly since most of the stories don't deal with the military or law enforcement and some of the dogs highlighted are located outside the U.S. But I'm picking nits, the cover is of a beautiful dog and who can find fault in that?

ARE WE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW HOW SMART ANIMALS ARE? :: Frans de Waal

"The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind." ~Charles Darwin

I finished this book several weeks ago and have had a difficult time figuring out how to write about it. Author Frans de Waal has summed up the premise with that lengthy title, but the execution of the premise is multi-faceted. It's fascinating, to be sure, especially for those of us who believe animals capable of more cognition than they've historically been given credit for, particularly in Science Land.

Yes, there are those of us who tend to be more anthropomorphic than others (anyone name their cars or other inanimate objects - show of hands?). This doesn't mean you've been wrong about animals. They are more than "stimulus-response machines" or "robots genetically endowed with useful instincts" and humans have been a bit more than merely egocentric when it comes to handing out awards for intelligence. What de Waal has done in Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? is point out (1) just how smart many animals really are and (2) how we need to smarten ourselves up since many of our testing techniques have been flawed.

It's one thing to put an animal through a set of tests intended to measure its cognition. It's yet another to acknowledge the fact that cognition might exist that's different than our own (great discussion on Umwelt) and a need exists test animals in a way that accurately represents their cognitive abilities.

In other words, is it really fair to test the intelligence of a chimp using tests intended to measure the intelligence of children? Of course, chimps often kick human ass in some of those tests anyway, but the point is made. We need to set aside our egos and be smart enough to create tests that accurately measure the intelligence of different species of animals.

Short example: Chimps were thought to lack the ability to recognize faces when shown photographs of various people. Someone eventually wised up and began showing chimps pictures of other chimps, and it became clear chimps could recognize other chimps just as we do other people. We got smart enough to figure out how smart they really are.

In Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, de Waal discusses different schools of thought regarding animal intelligence and the history of discourse between them. He also, as a proponent of viewing human cognition as a variety of animal cognition (we are, after all, animals), shares a number of animal cognitive discoveries over the past twenty years that highlight the idea that perhaps we're not quite as special (or alone in our cognition, at least) as we think we are.

The studies and discoveries presented by de Waal come from various scientists studying different species, in order to provide an overview of advancements in the field using both testing and observational methods. Most of it is quite engrossing, some of it surprising, and all of it educational. These portions were the highlight of the book for me.

Overall, I didn't often feel overwhelmed by the content, but did at times feel I was getting mired in the length and breadth of it. A few times I found myself feeling like it was too much and/or too long. In those instances, I just picked and chose which issues I wanted to read in depth. The book is written in a fairly engaging manner, despite some of the heady material. If you're at all interested in these issues, de Waal generally did a great job presenting the material for various levels of knowledge and interest.

My friend Marisa over at The Daily Dosage also recently reviewed this book and we had somewhat similar experiences. But her review, found here, also includes a neat list of interesting nuggets of information she pulled from the text, along with a link to a TED Talk video of de Waal's presentation on Moral Behavior in Animals. Go check it out Marisa's review for another viewpoint and extra source material on the subject.

STREET SENSE:  If you are into animals, science, and intelligence issues presented in an engaging and fairly straight-forward manner, even infused with a little humor, I recommend de Waal's work. Even if you just wanted to skim through and read the studies, this book would be worth the read, it's really compelling stuff.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  And why is humanity so prone to downplay animal intelligence? We routinely deny them capacities that we take for granted in ourselves. What is behind this? In trying to find out at what mental level other species operate, the real challenge comes not just from the animals themselves but also from within us. Human attitudes, creativity, and imagination are very much part of the story. Before we ask if animals possess a certain kind of intelligence, especially one that we cherish in ourselves, we need to overcome internal resistance to even consider the possibility. Hence this book's central question: "Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are?"

Couldn't resist this one as well, which kind of sums up the whole shebang in one fell swoop:

However good our relations with apes, the idea that we can test them in exactly the same way we test children is an illusion of the same order as someone throwing both fish and cats into a swimming pool and believing he is treating them the same way.

COVER NERD SAYS:  A big cat and a title that (however long and ungainly) intimates we're going to delve into animal intelligence? Doesn't take much more than that to suck me in. This cover isn't something I'd hang on my wall, but it certainly gets the job done. Part of me thinks the title could have been a bit less of a mouthful, but then again, it sums up what the book is about pretty much to a "T," so I really can't take that much issue with it.

THE PENGUIN LESSONS :: Tom Michell

"Had I been told as a child in the 1950s that my life would one day run parallel with that of a penguin - that for a time, at least, it would be him and me against the world - I would have taken it in my stride. After all, my mother had kept three alligators at the house in Esher until they grew too big and too dangerous for that genteel town, when keepers from the Chessington Zoo had come and removed them."

I recently found myself in a severe book rut, the likes of which I can't remember having suffered before. I had DNF'd three straight audiobooks (and only hate-finished the fourth because I just had to see if it was as aggravating as I thought it was - answer, yes) and wasn't having much better luck with tree- or e-books. To be fair, life in general has been nothing but a wheelbarrow full of upheaval lately. I needed something special to snap me out of my malaise.

I'm a sucker for a well-told animal rescue story, so I hitched my happy-reading wagon to Tom Michell's The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird. Boy did this brief but utterly charming memoir help me waddle right out of my literary doldrums.

In the mid-1970s, Michell, then 23, left his native England for a position at an Argentinian boarding school. On a weekend jaunt to Uruguay, he came across the horrific results of an oil spill: hundreds of dead, beached penguins. When one mighty penguin showed signs of life, Michell felt he had no choice but to rescue the plucky fellow, who he (quite hilariously) cleaned up, smuggled back to Argentina, and ultimately christened Juan Salvado.

If you're given to anthropomorphizing, you'll love this book. If you're not, I dare you to read this gem and not come away with a different feeling and understanding about the minds and emotions of animals. Juan Salvado is a sheer delight - to Michell, his students, his cleaning lady, school staff, and, I'm betting, most readers. At turns warm and laugh-out-loud funny (I literally did "lol" at Michell's efforts to clean the bird in a posh Uruguayan apartment), I was entranced from beginning to end.

The Penguin Lessons also provides interesting insight into Argentina and its people in the 1970s. It was a difficult time, politically, socially, and environmentally ("terrorism was rife; murder and kidnappings were everyday events"), and any dip into those territories runs the risk of becoming preachy or, well, political. I thought Michell walked that line perfectly. The information added necessary flavor and background information without overpowering the story Michell set out to tell. "Juan Salvador was a penguin who charmed and delighted everyone who knew him in those dark and dangerous days."

I recently read another animal rescue story that dealt with "lessons learned" from the animal and it turned out to be nothing but an excuse to quote Bible scripture. So I've become a bit wary of that tag line. Nothing to fear here. We all have things to learn from listening to animals, and this story stays true to the themes of rescue, friendship, and compassion.

A slim volume at just 240 pages, with chapter headings alone worth the read (i.e, "7 Upstairs Downstairs. In which Juan Salvado takes up residence and hosts a house-warming party"), this would be a great holiday gift for the animal lovers in your life. I know it's on my list.

STREET SENSE: Michell has hit this one out of the park. A funny and heartwarming story that lives up to Michell's quest to live a grand adventure in his twenties. Highly recommended.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  All of a sudden I was hoping against hope that the penguin would survive because, as of that instant, he had a name and his name was Juan Salvador Penguino, and with his name came a surge of hope and the beginning of a bond that would last a lifetime. That was the moment at which he became my penguin, and whatever the future held, we'd face it together.

COVER NERD SAYS: C'mon. A PENGUIN WEARING A SCARF. If you can resist that, I'm not sure I know who you are. I love the art work on this cover and although I haven't yet seen it in person it looks as though it may even be letterpress. A+ stuff worthy of the innards.

THE DOGIST :: Elias Weiss Friedman

When Elias Friedman was laid off from his job at a major New York agency, he decided to become more entrepreneurial. After some work on a startup that was ultimately sold, he decided to combine the two things he loves most: photography and dogs. The result was a 2013 Instagram feed (@TheDogist) that took off across most social media platforms (1.2 million followers on Instagram; same Twitter handle and Facebook page name). His work has now been compiled into a fantastic hardbound collection entitled The Dogist: Photographic Encounters with 1,000 Dogs.

I came across The Dogist on Twitter and was captivated. As a fellow lifelong lover of dogs and photography, this work captures two things I hold dear, and does it quite well. Elias’ work is brilliantly expressive; it’s mostly close-up work on the streets of New York and truly captures the many different personalities and essences of “dog.”

The photos generally include the dog's name (which is something I always love to know), breed, and age. Sometimes, if the dog does something interesting or the owner starts talking with Friedman, we also get a little fact about the dog. The international posts (Friedman doesn't stop working when he travels) are especially fun, treating those of us here in the U.S. to breeds (and names) we don't see as often or at all.

As Friedman once said in an interview, "Every dog deserves recognition." I believe he practices what he preaches, as the spectrum of unique is fully explored in both Friedman's work and the book. The collection is put together in entertaining categories too numerous to recount here, but includes: heavyweights, barkers, sassy, haircuts, head tilts, rare breeds, snow, bionic, tongues, beautiful blends, cones of shame—you get the picture.

There’s something for everyone and I guarantee you’ll see at least one thing you’ve never seen before. Elias has been doing the work long and steadily enough that there is no shortage of material to work with, and each page is a lesson in the beautiful and unique qualities of human’s best friend.

Elias also created the Give a Dog a Bone program, featuring stories of shelter dogs (more than 50 in 20 different shelters), most of which have since found homes. Says Friedman, "I visit shelters and photograph adoptable dogs to be featured on the site. From there people from my audience will sponsor the dogs. It gives these dogs more exposure than they would otherwise have and helps tell an important piece of the story."

The Dogist is highly recommended for photographers and dog admirers alike, and would be a super Christmas present for the dog lover in your life.

THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS :: Sy Montgomery

"It takes a special person to understand what it means to have a friend who's an octopus."

Every once in a while I read a book that makes my face hurt from grinning like an idiot throughout. It happens mostly with non-fiction works involving animals or nature/science themes. Perhaps those are simply the subjects that make me feel like a beaming 6-year-old again, but whatever magic they hold, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness has it in spades.

Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, author, and scriptwriter who has been described as "part Indiana Jones, part Emily Dickinson." She has written more than fifteen books, most of which have to do with a particular species of animal. This time, she shares her extraordinary relationships with four octopuses* at the Boston Aquarium: Athena, Octavia, Kali and Karma, each friendship as complex and unique as those between humans.


Montgomery knew little about octopuses when her adventure began, but what little she did know intrigued her:

Here is an animal with venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange. It can change color and shape. It can taste with its skin. Most fascinating of all, I had read that octopuses are smart.

According to Montgomery, "those who work with octopuses report seeing things that, according to the way we've learned the world normally works, should not be happening." For an invertebrate, octopuses have enormous brains, and they evidence incredible problem-solving skills.

These skills are required for survival in the wild, where an octopus is basically a "big packet of unprotected protein." Well aware of their vulnerability, octopuses are magicians, altering body position, color, and skin texture to, for example, morph into a flatfish, then a sea snake, and then a poisonous lionfish, all in a matter of seconds. An octopus has to choose what to display for an occasion, monitor the results/reaction and then change again if necessary, all in the name of survival:

From building shelters to shooting ink to changing color, the vulnerable octopus must be ready to outwit dozens of species of animals, some of which it pursues, others it must escape. How do you plan for so many possibilities? Doing so demands, to some degree, anticipating the actions - in other words, imagining the minds - of other individuals...[O]f all the creatures on the planet who imagine what is in another creature's mind, the one that must do so best might well be the octopus - because without this ability, the octopus could not perpetrate its many self-preserving deceptions. An octopus  must convince many species of predator that it is really something else...The octopus must assess whether the other animal believes its ruse or not, and if not, try something different.

In captivity, octopuses have to be carefully kept, as any weakness in their tanks will be exploited as an escape route. Given a series of increasingly difficult interlocking cubes, octopuses will solve them one after the other, each animal going about the problem differently. One octopus learned to get the attention of her owner when he was out of the room by removing the interior portion of a magnetized tank cleaner. Once she removed the magnet from the glass, the exterior portion would crash to the floor, summoning her human like ringing a servant's bell.

Smart indeed. But what about characteristics and abilities that go beyond intelligence? Do animals have souls? Do they feel emotions like we do? If you have doubts, I dare you to read this book and not be persuaded. The scientific information in Soul is worth the price of admission alone, but the emotional connections between the four octopuses and the author, as well as various aquarium keepers, scientists, interns, and their friends turns this book into a true love story, intraspecies and interspecies alike.

I have heard octopuses described as the "dogs of the sea," and after reading this book that description seems right on point. They recognize people as individuals, greeting and reacting to them differently, sensing various moods and responding accordingly. Some lift their arms out of the water and reach toward a favorite person like a child who wants to be lifted and hugged. Other times, they spray a victim with a strong stream of water, often in play, sometimes to teach a lesson.

I can't do justice to the wonder of this book, the joy and pain and fellowship and grief that Montgomery brings to life with her words. The window she provides into the lives of these four creatures, young and old, sharp as a tack and descending into "dementia," as well as her human counterparts, is completely engrossing and accessible, making the reader feel like a part of the community they created around an octopus barrel. It will make you want to run to your nearest aquarium and sit in front of the octopus display, hoping to make your own connection with this extraordinary animal.

(*The scientifically correct plural, I learned, is not octopi. Apparently it is improper to put a Latin ending - i - on a word of Green origin, as is the word "octopus." Who knew? (Not me. Or the author, so I don't feel so bad.))

STREET SENSE:  I can't recommend this book highly enough for anyone who is the least bit interested in animals, natural science and/or animal sentience. Packed full of facts, it still reads like a great story. It's very smart while not overly-technical, immersed with emotion while not treacly or manipulative. Heck, I fell in love so hard I would go out and get an octopus if I didn't know I would be outwitted and over-matched.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Even though her skin can change color and taste flavors, it, like mine, relaxes into a caress. And though her mouth is between her arms, and her saliva dissolves flesh, she, like me, clearly enjoys a good meal when she's hungry. I felt as if I had understood something very basic about her at that moment. I don't know what it's like to change color or shoot ink, but I do know the joys of gentle touch and of eating food when hungry. I know what it feels like to be happy. Athena was happy.

COVER NERD SAYS:  This cover is going to be in the running for my favorite of the year. Everything about it is perfection. The palette, the art work, the fonts and relative sizing. I took one look and knew I wanted to dig in. There are certain covers that, like movie posters, would look great hanging on a wall. This is one of those covers.

ANIMAL WEAPONS :: Douglas J. Emlen

If you are any kind science and nature nerd and have a minutia of interest in how such influences as mating, territory, and predation impact how animal forms evolve (sometimes even in one direction and back again), stop reading and just go get Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle. If you need a little convincing, read on, I welcome the challenge.

Animal Weapons is the most geeked-out fun I’ve had reading in a long time. Author Douglas Emlen has brilliantly laid out all kinds of super cool, sciencey principles in a manner that’s engaging and easy to understand. Animal Weapons kept me as engrossed as a top-notch thriller.  I was grinning from ear to ear from the time I read this early synopsis to the end:

This is a book about extreme weapons, structures so gargantuan and bizarre they look like they shouldn’t be possible—so awkward that the animals who bear them ought to tip over, or trip, or get tangled each time they attempt to move. Why are these weapons so big? And is there such a thing as too big? To answer these questions, we’ll delve into the murky forests and mountainsides where animals do battle, immersing ourselves in the details of their lives in order to identify patterns: things these wildly different species all share in common, and things that illuminate the logic behind such extraordinary animal forms. 

Of the estimated 3.1 million known species, only about 3,000 wield an extreme weapon of some sort – from tusks and horns to crazy protrusions from the head or shoulder blades. While sizes range from the ginormous (16’ Mastodon tusks) to the miniscule (1/4” fly antlers), all weapons are relative to the size of the animal. Growing weapons consumes valuable resources, so animals only enter an arms race when certain factors dictate.

What factors could have such an impact, you ask? The basic equation illustrated in Animal Weapons is this: sexual selection (i.e., the women get to let the men fight over them) + economic defensibility (a need to secure territory for breeding, grazing, etc…) = extreme weapons. Those elements and many more are dissected in captivating detail in each chapter, with real-life examples. Here’s a brief look at one to whet your appetite:

A particular beetle has to guard a tunnel where the female he wants to mate with resides. Because he has to compete with other males for that tunnel and the affections of Mrs. Beetlicious, evolution has provided him with some substantial horns to use as weapons. Not all the beetle dudes are blessed with horns as big (or even any horns at all). So the under-endowed beetles often become “sneaks.” These sneaky bastards make their own tunnel not far from well-endowed beetle’s and then tunnel SIDEWAYS into macho man’s castle to mate with his lady on the sly. How super cool is that? (For beetles. Human dudes? Not cool at all.)

But it gets even better. Nature will tolerate a certain percentage of procreation by sneaks. But if the sneaks start to have too much success, the extreme weapon, in this case the beetle’s horns, may be deemed unnecessary (no need to guard the female if the sneaks are getting so much of the action anyway), and not worth the resources the beetle requires to grow and sustain them. Therefore, the horns may begin to evolve back out of the species. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

But wait, it gets awesomer (not a word, don’t care). Turns out, very similar principles apply to the human arms race. Emlen provides human-specific examples of the animal-world principles discussed in most chapters, and it’s unreal to see how they apply. The entire structure of the Royal Navy evolved along these same principles. When sneaks (German U-boats) began attacking cumbersome battleships, those battleships evolved into aircraft carriers.

If this book is making me sound like a 6-year-old who just opened the dog breed picture book that was all she wanted for Christmas, then my enthusiasm is being properly expressed. The only part that didn't have me completely riveted were the few sections at the end dealing entirely with the arms race of mankind. I just don’t find us or our (modern) military as interesting as the animal world, and while I thought the analogies in the animal chapters were super, the military-only sections just weren't as smack in the middle of my wheelhouse.

STREET SENSE: It’s only February, but I’d be shocked if Animal Weapons isn't in my top ten reads of 2015. Top 5 isn't even a stretch, it was that fantastic. I can’t recommend it highly enough if you’re at all interested in the animal world and/or principles of evolution.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: I must have been distracted, because I never noticed the blade sliding across my thumb until it was too late--I’d sliced clean through to the bone. We were miles away from civilization with no easy way to get to a hospital. So we sterilized the wound with rum and sutured it with ants.

(Yes, you read that right, SUTURED IT WITH ANTS. To get the whole story, you’ll just have to read the book.)

COVER NERD SAYS: A great drawing of a saber-toothed cat on a book about animal weapon evolution? I ordered this book based on the cover and title alone. Although I was a bit concerned about the knight on the cover, the image was small enough I figured the book concentrated on the weapons of animals and not those of men. The proportions turned out to be pretty right on, so I think the cover served the book (and the reader) exceptionally well. (The analogies to knights and their armor were stellar, by the way.)  I love this cover.

LEARNING TO PLAY WITH A LION'S TESTICLES :: Melissa Haynes

Why do I blame this review on The Bloggess? Anyone who follows Jenny knows she gets some "unusual" suggested purchases at Amazon. All well-earned, mind you. Bless her heart, she often shares the more amusing and far-out items, of which this book was one. I took one look at the title and knew I had to have it. I didn't care what was inside, anyone who has the...well, balls, to put balls front and center on their book cover is worthy of a spot on my shelf.

Fittingly, it was a bizarre ride. Although never fully explained, author Melissa Haynes volunteered at a conservation preserve in South Africa, overseen by a ranger she refers to as Drill Sergeant. I spent the better part of the book thinking the two of them were the worst volunteer and ranger duo to ever grace a conservation preserve and survive (barely).

I cut the author some slack, as she had recently lost her mother to cancer (I'm guessing as to the timing; again, this is never explained) and her siblings are complete asshats, showing up at their mother's death bed only to clean out her house and leave town the day before Christmas, deserting Haynes to deal with their dying mother alone. Oh, and on the way out the door they tell her she has to get a life. Ah, family.

My feelings of empathy were sorely tested, as Haynes seemed to go out of her way to portray herself as a difficult, spoiled nitwit.

Some of her more questionable behavior included:

• Bringing food back to her tent against direct instruction, only to spend the night in fear of the creature lured by said food (brownies, no less. What are leftover brownies? Leftover brownies are rarer in my house than any animal at that preserve.);
• Bitching about the lack of a radio in the safari truck (because who wants to hear an elephant trumpet when they could get The Biebs on the radio instead?);
• Dealing with an incorrigible elephant by mixing dung into its food (it takes a special breed of maroon to do this to an animal);
• Complaining about every task she's given (apparently expecting she would be lying on a divan in a Snuggie bottle-feeding adorable newborn cheetahs while watching Oprah);
• Bemoaning her inability to understand Drill Sergeant's local dialect, which she refers to as "jibber jabber" (Hello, ugly American!)(But really, how can you blame her when one of the brain-twisters of an examples she cites is that in Africaans they use "100%" to mean "that's excellent" or "utter perfection" -- those damn foreigners and their pesky cultural jargon!);
• Fearing she is going to be raped by every local man who crosses her path (I don't even have words for this level of jackassery);
• Showing an utter inability to use a machete to cut a tree limb (anyone who has read internet comments or tried to shop at Costco during free sample hour knows how to use a machete, amiright?). 

Show of hands - who's ready to give her a pork loin necklace and send her into the lion enclosure?

Speaking of the lion enclosure, Drill Sergeant is not depicted as a threat to the local Mensa chapter. To get into the enclosure requires driving through two locked gates, the "neutral" area between them ensuring no escape. Which would be a great system if Drill Sergeant hadn't explained early on that the lions can jump the enclosure fence. Now I'm no Marlin Perkins, but you're never going to convince me those lions simply sit around super pissed they can't figure out the gates when they know they can leave the enclosure in a single bound.

The scene that put the icing on the cake of stupidity was the feeding of the lions. Drill Sergeant loads an antelope carcass in the back of the truck and drives through the two (apparently useless) gates into the enclosure. Lions smell dinner, want dinner, start chasing truck. Failing to outrun the lions, Drill Sergeant instructs Haynes to take the wheel, speed ahead as far as she can, then slam on the brakes. Drill Sergeant jumps out, runs to the back of the truck, lowers the tailgate and sprints back inside just as the pursuing lions arrive. With the tailgate now down they drive really fast up an incline so the carcass slides out the back and the Circle of Life Buffet is open for business.

Prizes for anyone who can explain why this mastermind would go through that rigmarole and risk failing to outrun hungry, carcass-smelling lions rather than simply lowering the damn tailgate before entering the enclosure. I fully expect to see this story in next year's Darwin Award nominees.

In the end, Haynes comes to terms with her fear of death and the loss of her mother, and somewhat redeems herself by performing her chores without griping and taking the initiative to start a vegetable garden for the locals. Drill Sergeant, who has obviously eaten too many spiked brownies, tells her she's the hardest working volunteer he's ever had. All of which tells me her less than stellar portrayal of herself that came before was likely exaggerated for the sake of story-telling. Overall, the book entertained me almost as much as it torqued my shorts, which is saying something.

STREET SENSE: You're on your own with this one.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: "Have you ever seen a lion rip the spine out of a fleeing zebra?"

Note: Not the usual quotation fare, but I dare you to read that sentence without a flashback to the movie "Airplane!" and a trip down a wonderful quote tangent with the likes of "Ever seen a grown man naked?" "Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue," "There's a sale at Penny's!" and "Don't call me Shirley."

COVER NERD SAYS: Just look at that thing of beauty. The title alone got me to buy the damn book without even knowing what was inside. And is it just a happy accident the bush (no pun intended) is hiding the area of the titular lion's testicles? Just what kind of learning is going on here? The imagination runs. I'd say this one is marketing genius. At least with respect to those who have a penchant for lion balls.