King Solomon's Ring (Routledge Classics) [Hardcover]

Konrad Lorenz (Author), Julian Huxley (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415267463 | ISBN-13: 978-0415267465 | Publication Date: August 9, 2002 | Edition: 2

Solomon, the legend goes, had a magic ring which enabled him to speak to the animals in their own language. Konrad Lorenz was gifted with a similar power of understanding the animal world. He was that rare beast, a brilliant scientist who could write (and indeed draw) beautifully. He did more than any other person to establish and popularize the study of how animals behave, receiving a Nobel Prize for his work. King Solomon's Ring, the book which brought him worldwide recognition, is a delightful treasury of observations and insights into the lives of all sorts of creatures, from jackdaws and water-shrews to dogs, cats and even wolves. Charmingly illustrated by Lorenz himself, this book is a wonderfully written introduction to the world of our furred and feathered friends, a world which often provides an uncanny resemblance to our own. A must for any animal-lover!

Editorial Reviews

Review

'It is one of the best and most penetrating non-technical books about animals and animal nature that has ever been written ... every sensitive reader will agree that the book is a work of humanity, wisdom and balance as well as of delightful humour.' – W H Thorpe

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (August 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415267463
• ISBN-13: 978-0415267465
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,359,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book for all who love nature, January 19, 2004

By 

Keith Appleyard "kapple999" (Brighton, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: King Solomon's Ring (Routledge Classics) (Hardcover)

Confession - I'd never heard of Konrad Lorenz (even though he won the Nobel Prize in 1973), and I don't usually read books by Naturalists.

I was driving between business meetings during the day, when I happened to tune in to BBC Radio 4 (same as National Public Radio in the USA), and by accident caught a book reading of Chapter 10 regarding Dogs. Then on another day I caught Chapter 11 on Birds. Captivated, I actually pulled over so that I could hear the whole chapter & find out what the book was and who the Author was.

Then I ordered the book as a treat to myself for Christmas.

Fantastic! With some abridging 'on the fly', this book could even be read to/by a younger audience say down to 8 years old, who would enjoy, laugh & cry at some of the stories contained herein.

I wish my science teacher had read this to me when I was 8, rather than do some silly experiments with boring pond life (Chapter 2 would have taught me more about Pond Life)!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have book for everyone, anyone., November 29, 2003

By 

Frank Bierbrauer (Cardiff, Wales, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: King Solomon's Ring (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

A rare 5 stars for this one, simply delightful, a joy to read. Lorenz is so full of love for his craft, yes I say craft because that is the way he treats his study of animal behaviour. Not an average scientist but rather somehow he has that rare ability to both love his work and be able to write about it to a lay audience with wonderful wit, charm, wisdom and grace. He's a little like Adolf Portmann except with more humour but the same love.

I mentioned that he writes this book for lay readers, not scientists, and unlike the contemporary crowd, who often write in a more condescending way he manages to get across the animals and their complex behaviour without ever at any stage making the reader think himself inadequate to the task. He writes as a human being experiencing the wonders of the natural world and does not artificially reduce it to ashes and leache the life out of it as others do. Here he actually makes people want to become naturalists or biologists. There is no finer writer in the sciences.

In the book, a little tome of 190 pages, he discusses a whole range of animals he studies notably, often from his own home where he keeps an entire managerie of ducks, geese, jackdaws, parrots, dogs, hamsters, water shrews etc etc. The whole house is alive with the raucous cries and crazy comings and goings of his companions. He gives much to the reader such as how to manage an aquarium properly, how to look after animals correctly so their lives are well lived and the book is chocka-block full of animal tales. The kind of tales myths and legends are grown from. I mean that the tales are often so remarkable, e.g. the intelligence shown by his pet raven or the story of two men carrying a canoe followed by several goslings, a large red dog and some ducklings. Its droll and humouress and full of joy. And, in it all the way through are his wondrous drawings portraying everything he tells of in the book.

A must have book for everyone, anyone.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly filled with wonder, August 21, 2008

By 

Maggie Brasted "co-author of Wild Neighbors: ... (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King Solomon's Ring (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

"Without supernatural assistance, our fellow creatures can tell us the most beautiful stories, and that means true stories, because the truth about nature is always far more beautiful even than what our great poets sing of it, and they are the only real magicians that exist." This book is wonderful in the original sense of that word, filled with wonder, and this quote from the Preface explains one reason this is so. Another reason is the sense that one is sitting peacefully on a pleasant evening while a true raconteur quietly meanders through his unexpectedly mesmerizing tales.

I originally picked up this book looking for material to liven up a natural history essay on shrews; those tiny overlooked but wide-spread creatures better known as metaphors than animals. This classic book from a legendary naturalist includes one of the very few bits of writing on shrews outside formal scientific literature. Surely, I thought, Lorenz would have something interesting to say. In fact, he had many interesting things to say on shrews. After finding that he could tell an entertaining and informative tale that brought these apparently unexciting animals to life on the page, I naturally had to start back at the beginning and read the book through.

Each chapter treats a different topic and can stands on its own. But read together they bring an understanding greater than their sum. Lorenz's skilled storytelling gradually reveals that what at first appeared to be many different threads are all actually part of one wonderful fabric.