The Curious Naturalist: Nature's Everyday Mysteries [Paperback]

Sy Montgomery (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: Down East Books (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892725109
• ISBN-13: 978-0892725106
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,234,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Part Emily Dickinson, part Indiana Jones," as the Boston Globe has called her, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and swum with piranhas and pink dolphins in the Amazon. To research her books, films and articles, she has worked in a pit swarming with 18,000 snakes in Canada and been hunted by a tiger in India. She has hiked the Altai Mountains of Mongolia's Gobi desert in search of snow leopards and penetrated the cloud forests of Papua New Guinea to radio collar tree kangaroos. No place is too far to go to bring animals' true stories to adults and children around the world.

Th author of the national bestseller, The Good Good Pig, as well as 15 other celebrated nonfiction books, Montgomery writes for print as well as broadcast in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible at what she considers a critical turning point in human history. "We are on the cusp of either destroying this sweet, green Earth or revolutionizing the way we understand the rest of animate creation," she says. "It's an important time to be writing about the connections we share with our fellow creatures. It's a great time to be alive."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The wonders of your own backyard, October 21, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Curious Naturalist: Nature's Everyday Mysteries (Paperback)

This is a book that I will never lend out. I will buy a few extra copies of it to give away, but I want to keep my copy forever. I found it by searching Amazon for some good natural history books to read in the winter, when I miss my garden. I really lucked out with this one.

Sy Montgomery was the nature columnist for the Boston Globe. She is extremely knowledgable, and her writing is concise yet filled with wonder at her magical subjects. I learned about the lovelorn messages sent by singing insects on autumn evenings, the messages contained in spiderwebs, the effects of winter snow on the way sound travels, the way all life depends on the unusual structure of water. Most fun is the author's description of ways to interact with other creatures. I learned that it is easy to teach wild birds to eat out of your hand, and that one can flirt with fireflies in their own language using a flashlight in the grass. The author offers some of these suggestions as experiments for children, but at the tender age of 54 I am looking forward to trying them all out by myself.

Another thing I like about this book is that each essay can be read in a single sitting (or a single night before going to sleep, in my case). They are concise. I get a lot of delight per unit time spent reading.

The only thing wrong with this book is that it needs a better title. If Sy Montgomery had the lovely titles that Diane Ackerman comes up with, she would quickly overtake Ackerman's sales numbers.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reconnect with the seasons, December 28, 2000

By 

Grace K. Sheehan "thesilverpennydotcom" (Cape Elizabeth, ME United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Curious Naturalist: Nature's Everyday Mysteries (Paperback)

In the middle of a bleak, New England winter and at a time in my life when I felt disconnected from the natural world due to health difficulties, I purchased this book. I opened it to the section on winter and read the first essay entitled, "Sounds and Silences of December." Not only was it interesting to learn that sound travels farther and is clearer over frozen ground, but it encouraged me to go outside and see for myself! Since then, this book has been a source of valuable information regarding the unique aspects of each season. Also, it has been a source of encouragement, drawing me out-of-doors to explore. I don't have to venture far from home to experience some of the things written about in the book. Learn about peepers in spring, mud season, insects, messages in spider webs, chipmunks and squirrels, animal migrations, exploring the off-season beach in winter...just to name a few. If you've never been an outdoorsy person or need some guidance to reconnect, this is an excellent choice.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasurable read., March 10, 2003

By 

William Oterson (About 50 miles, or so, east of Manhattan.) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Curious Naturalist: Nature's Everyday Mysteries (Paperback)

A beautifully written book about the natural world that supplies the reader with an enormous amount of information about the world we seldom see and the other lives which inhabit it.