Customer Reviews

Insect Lives: Stories of Mystery and Romance from a Hidden World

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This is a beautifully and cleverly edited eclectic collection of stories, articles, poems, scientific treatises, and even cartoons about insects. There are quaint stories from the eighteenth century, studious articles from the nineteenth, and modern selections from such twentieth century experts as Edward O. Wilson, Roger B. Swain. Karl von Frisch, May Berenbaum, Harold Oldroyd and others. Charles Darwin is represented, Aristotle, Alfred Russel Wallace, Thoreau, even the Bible makes an appearance. There are selections from a novella, A.S. Byatt's "Morpho Eugenia"; poems, Wordsworth's "To a Butterfly," Robert Burns's "To a Louse"; and even a bit of a movie, THEM! (1954). Obviously, editors, Hoyt and Schultz are as intent at entertaining as informing. You'll find dozens of different insects here, from house flies and ants to dung beetles and glow-worms to ticks, wasps, silverfish, etc. Each selection is presented with a short note from the editors and followed by a bibliographical entry. There is an index of authors and one of subjects. The selections are collected under various heading, e.g., "Insects Praised," "Insects Reviled," "Insect Architecture," etc. The sheer breath of insect behavior presented here is unnerving: How multifarious are the realities of life! Noteworthy is the meticulous care taken with the editing and proofreading. This is a good and strange read.

If you're interested in insects, this book is for you. An excellent collection of a a large quantity of writings and other materials, all about insects. Good bedside reading, as each excerpt is relatively short.

This book is a collection of short pieces about every conceivable type of insect. A few are complete essays, but most are excerpts from longer works. At least one is a one-panel Gary Larson cartoon!

Most of the selections are entertaining, or at least interesting. Many are records of direct observation by naturalists in the 19th or early 20th Centuries. Usually they have some distinguishing feature such as freakish behavior, first observation, or an exceptionally interesting experiment included.

This is not a scientific book on insects--Although many of the authors are scientists, the excerpts don't fit together to make a textbook or organized survey of insects. What it is is very interesting and entertaining--A good bathroom or bedside book for the insect-lover. Definitely do not choose it as your first or only book in trying to learn about insects, but it makes a good addition to the insect library of an enthusiast.

This is such a diverse book - each entry is pretty short so you can pick up the book for a short read. There are some humorous parts, some dense parts, lots of interesting facts. Each entry has a short intro by the author to give some context to who the writer of the piece was and sometimes a bit of background on the essay itself. There are some neat drawings too (grasshoppers through metamorphosis, moth ears, a walking stick to name a few) There's lots of variety in terms of subjects covered ranging from butterflies to bees to aphids to earwigs to ants, wasps and more. Defiintely a good book for anyone interested in insects and it would make an especially nice gift since the content is so unusual.

I absolutely love this book. I do have a fascination with insects which help with this book. There is incerpts of so many discoveries of when the insects where first found so the terminology is basic and the descriptions are accurate in laymans terms. I have had to buy three other books that they took incerpts in because I was so intrigued.