The Book of Deadly Animals

Jul 5, 2024 5:52 PM

Author:Gordon Grice

Consider, if you can, the case of Jacob Fowler, who heard what he thought was the sound of his own skull cracking between the jaws of a grizzly bear - only to discover that it was. Or the Arizonan jogger who ran a mile back to her car with a rabid fox clamped to her arm before driving to hospital for live-saving inoculations. Or the woman who was attacked by a hyena, dragged from her tent by her face and survived to tell of her ordeal.

The dangers of the animal kingdom are the stuff of legend but the reality of man's vulnerability and of nature's savage power is far more various, improbable and chilling than even the most active imagination would fear. In this unique work of nature writing, you will encounter the most formidable predators on land and sea - as well as the most overlooked, bizarre and inventive hazards that mother nature has to offer. Meet the cougar that can leap 40 feet and clear 8-foot fences with a fully-grown deer in its jaws, the tapeworm that's been known to grow as long as 82 feet in the human gut and the elephant that single-handedly destroyed an oil tanker.

Drawing on an enormous host of true encounters between man and beast, this is the world's most authoritative compendium of animal attacks on human beings. With mordant wit and expert timing, Gordon Grice provides a gripping journey to the dark side of the animal kingdom and a celebration of its humbling, savage glory.

Reviews

A must for anyone even remotely thinking of getting a monkey, a sea lion, or, heaven forbid, a dog

—— David Sedaris

A fresh, strange, and wonderful new voice in American nature writing

—— Michael Pollan

I think the only way I could possibly have enjoyed this more is if I happened to be an adventurous twelve-year-old boy, but still, even for a fully domesticated forty-year-old woman, it was both a thrill and an education

—— Elizabeth Gilbert

I wolfed it down

—— Will Self on The Red Hourglass

First-rate, unsentimental writing about nature and about the ways that human beings try to cope with the most terrible cruelties that nature offers up

—— The New York Times

Elegant and wryly funny

—— Esquire

Self Comes to Mind is often an exhilarating read. Not unlike Carl Sagan, Damasio is clearly excited by the findings he describes, and the thrill of discovery shines through his fine, clear prose

—— Tom Jacobs

I was totally captivated by Self Comes to Mind.In this work Antonio Damasio presents his seminal discoveries in the field of neuroscience in the broader contexts of evolutionary biology and cultural development.This trailblazing book gives us a new way of thinking about ourselves, our history, and the importance of culture in shaping our common future

—— Yo-Yo Ma, Musician

Damasio makes a grand transition from higher-brain views of emotions to deeply evolutionary, lower-brain contributions to emotional, sensory and homeostatic experiences. He affirms that the roots of consciousness are affective and shared by our fellow animals. Damasio's creative vision leads relentlessly toward a natural understanding of the very font of being

—— Jaak Panksepp, author of Affective Neuroscience

Lucid, elegantly written, and punctuated by humour... This is an exciting book by a wonderful thinker

—— Siri Hustvedt

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