Customer Reviews

Mongoose Watch

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This is a record of the author's year-long observations of a family of mongooses in the African bush. It reads very easily, with the animals given a measure (but not too much) of anthropomorphism. This is acknowledged by the author, and is done mainly to make the reading go more smoothly.
She paints a fascinating picture of the everyday lives of these animals, and her love for them is easily discernable. After a while, the individual mongooses (I always thought it was "mongeese", but I was wrong) seem to have similar status as your family pet, and when one dies, it is sincerely moving.
The beginning chapters are dedicated to the natural history of the mongooses and discuss everything from their eating habits to their playing. The last several chapters deal with some of the more important experiences that took place during the author's observations. Overall, it makes for an extremely complete view of the animal.
I highly recommend this book for anyone with any interest whatsoever in the natural world. A definate 5-star work.

The first tenet of science is observation, and Anne Rasa's delightful "Mongoose Watch: A Family Observed" is a tour de force of scientific writing. Her work elevates the dwarf mongoose to the status of Cynthia Moss' elephants, Jane Goodall's chimpanzees, Dian Fossey's gorillas, and Shirley Strum's baboons in our knowledge of African mammals as gained through studies by women field biologists. Each has been criticized for bestowing familiar names on the individuals she studied, yet each is recognized for becoming so familiar with the individuals studied as to know them on a first-name basis. Whether they were fine scientists who wrote well or fine writers who studied well doesn't matter. How accurately they observed and how interestingly they relate their observations does. Even in this fine company, Rasa's work is unexcelled. Her detailing of methodology, excitement of discovery, and pathos of loss are exquisitely conveyed as she describes "one of the most complicated social systems known amongst mammals." Prepare to be drawn into Diana's family as was Rasa herself in this amazing tale of life in the African bush.