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Title: The Unexpected Truth About Animals
Author: Lucy Cooke
Narrator: Lucy Cooke
Format: Unabridged
Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
Language: English
Release date: 11-30-17
Publisher: Random House Audiobooks
Genres: Science & Technology, Biology
Publisher's Summary:
Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Unexpected Truth About Animals, written and read by Lucy Cooke.
History is full of strange animal stories, invented by the brightest and most influential, from Aristotle to Disney, and they reveal as much about us and the things we believe as they do about the animals they misrepresent. We once thought that eels were born from sand, that swallows hibernated underwater, and that bears gave birth to formless lumps that were licked into shape by their mothers.
Zoologist Lucy Cooke unravels many such myths, revealing the facts she's uncovered while sniffing out vultures, snooping on sloths and stalking drunk moose.
The Unexpected Truth About Animals is in equal parts astonishing, illuminating and laugh-out-loud funny. Starring: feminist hyenas; perverted penguins, exploding bats and frogs in taffeta trousers....
Critic Reviews:
"Eye-opening, informative and very funny!" (Chris Packham)
Members Reviews:
Fascinating, funny, brilliantly written and conceived.
Because I am only three chapters in, I shall return to update this review, but I cannot wait to express my enthusiasm for a truly wonderful book. Aside from anything else, it is brilliantly written with great sensitivity to language, oft combined with a wicked wit. I must stress that one need not have the slightest interest in animals to find this beautiful book rewarding. ["Beautiful book? Aren't you going a little overboard, son?" NOPE: I am referring to the physical book, which is printed on quality paper, is full of illustrations, and even has a bound-in blue ribbon to keep one's place.]
How come? Because some writers can make ANYTHING interesting, and I suspect that applies to Lucy Cooke. But here she has fascinating subjects which she renders irresistible. Even the sloth. Did you know that since the early days of writing, the sloth has been misdescribed and completely misunderstood for just one reason: it had always been observed and analyzed upside down. One more thing: I read two chapters on an Amtrak train, and could not help but laugh out loud more than once or twice, which for me is very unusual. Buy it. It is a finely crafted book.
Wish she had a chapter on humans
How would you imagine the founder of the âSloth Appreciation Societyâ to be like? Whatever it may be, it is probably wrong. Lucy Cooke (the founder) is an eminent zoologist, and this is no slow book. It is a well-written, fast-paced âcannot-put-downâ book about animals; but it is not just a book about animals. Nothing in this book may prepare the reader for the Cooke account of the selected animals. She begins with the eel, and the research done about them by Aristotle (yes, the 2,000 years ago Greek better known for his philosophy) that led to the longest search for the eelâs gonads.
Cooke introduces us to the ostrich and its peculiar habits, especially its dietary habits, and explains why the big bird is known for eating jagged stones and metal (to aid digestion because they lack a ruminating stomach). The bigger stories are yet to come. The animals covered in this book are the beaver, the sloth, the hyena, the vulture, the bat, the frog, the stork, the hippopotamus, the moose, the panda, the penguin, and the chimpanzee.
The stories and account of each animal are amazing. Cook has a wonderful sense of humour.
