Every Creeping Thing

Written with city dwellers in mind, Richard Conniff's natural history is compiled from an uneven depth of knowledge of the animal kingdom. For instance, most kindergarteners know that bats don't use their eyes to hunt or fly, but this fact is eagerly reported with the same heightened excitement of found knowledge as, say, how bulls are maneuvered to advertise anything from beer to investment advisors. Richard M. Davidson doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between interesting material and apologetic asides. The reading therefore is unvaried in intensity. Though this is probably a good listen for 13-year-old biologists, adults may find it irritating and boring. B.H.B. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

November 30, 1998
Conniff, a science journalist whose previous book (Spineless Wonders) took on invertebrates, offers another funny, informed examination of the natural world. The author is no softie. He trusts his "gut feeling that fear of nature is normal--more normal, certainly, than a love of it." But readers shouldn't be fooled by the slightly curmudgeonly posture: Conniff pays the kind of close attention to nature that only someone who loves it can. (The book's title, far from being an epithet, comes from Genesis.) Conniff presents a rogue's gallery of beasts that includes the sloth, the grizzly, the bat and the snapping turtle, among other oft-maligned and misunderstood creatures. His defense of the sloth is priceless: "masters of digestion, champions of sleep, gurus of the pendulous, loafing life." While cormorants are demonized by naturalists for dining on trout, Conniff defends their honor, averring they would much rather chow down on alewives and other unwanted fishy predators than on grade-A fingerlings. The text offers a procession of odd facts: the mole can tunnel 60 feet or more in a day; sandtiger sharks eat their weaker siblings in the mother's womb. Coniff's 17 wonderful essays on some of the animal kingdom's "weird, unsuspected minutiae" make, in addition to great entertainment, a strong argument for the importance of biodiversity. Illustrations by Sally J. Bensusen.