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The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness Paperback – April 5, 2016
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“Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” —New Statesman, UK
“One of the best science books of the year.” —Science Friday, NPR
Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig, this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” (The Daily Beast) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus—a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature—and the remarkable connections it makes with humans.
In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food.
Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateApril 5, 2016
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.8 x 8.38 inches
- ISBN-101451697724
- ISBN-13978-1451697728
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Renowned author Sy Montgomery's latest gem is a must read for those who want to dissolve the human-constructed borders between "them" (other animals) and us. Surely, there are large differences among nonhuman animals and between nonhuman and human animals, but there also are many basic similarities. Connecting with other animals is part of the essential and personal process of rewilding and reconnecting with other animals, and The Soul of an Octopus is just what is needed to close the gap." -- Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional lives of Animals
"Diving deeper than Jules Verne ever dreamed, The Soul of an Octopus is a page-turning adventure that will leave you breathless. Has science ever been this deliciously hallucinatory? Boneless and beautiful, the characters here are not only big-hearted, they're multi-hearted, as well as smart, charming, affectionate...and, of course, ambidextrous. If there is a Mother Nature, her name is Sy Montgomery." -- Vicki Constantine Croke, author of Elephant Company
"In The Soul of an Octopus, Sy Montgomery immerses readers into an intriguing, seductive world just beneath the ocean waves and the lives of the creatures living within. In this beautifully written book, she brings empathy, insight, and an enchanting sense of wonderment to the bonds we inherently share with other beings—even those seeming far different from us." -- Vint Virga, DVM ― The Soul of All Living Creatures
“A captivating book on an intelligence as ‘alien’ as one from outer space. And its not science fiction.” -- Bernd Heinrich, author of Mind of the Raven
"Can an octopus have a mind and emotions, let alone a soul? Sy Montgomery faces these questions head-on in her engaging new book as she explores the world of octopuses, making friends with several and finding heartbreak when they die. They aren't, she discovers, simply brainless invertebrates, but personable, playful, conscious beings. Montgomery's enthusiasm for animals most of us rarely see is infectious, and readers will come away with a new appreciation for what it means to be an octopus." -- Virginia Morell, author of ANIMAL WISE: How We Know Animals Think and Feel
"With apparent delight, Montgomery puts readers inside the world of these amazing creatures. A fascinating glimpse into an alien consciousness." -- Kirkus Reviews
"The Soul of an Octopus is one of those works that makes you hope we can save the planet if for no other reason than to preserve the wondrous beasts we are fortunate enough to share it with." -- Steve Lysaker, Outward Hounds
"Sy Montgomery’s joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures will have you rethinking that order of calamari." ― Library Journal Editors' Spring Pick
"Sweet moments are at the heart of Montgomery's compassionate, wise and tender new book... Only a writer of her talent could make readers care about octopuses as individuals... Joins a growing body of literature that asks us to rethink our connection to nonhumans who may be more like us than we had supposed." ― St. Paul Pioneer Press
"I can't do justice to the wonder of this book, the joy and pain and fellowship and grief that Montgomery brings to life with her words...Completely engrossing and accessible." ― malcolmavenuereview.blog
"Montgomery's passion for other species is infectious...[Her] warmth and exuberance...make good reading, and her awe and admiration are uplifting... I felt informed, moved, and inspird - whieh is all a reader could possibly hope for from a book." ― Union Leader
"An engaging work of natural science... There is clearly something about the octopus’s weird beauty that fires the imaginations of explorers, scientists, writers." ― The Daily Mail - UK
"Delightful." ― NATURE
"Fascinating... touching... informative... Entertaining books like The Soul of an Octopus remind us of just how much we not only have to learn from fellow creatures, but that they can have a positive impact on our lives."
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Atria Books; Reprint edition (April 5, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1451697724
- ISBN-13 : 978-1451697728
- Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.38 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Invertebrates Zoology
- #1 in Marine Life
- #1 in Marine Biology (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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."
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Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2015
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Just knowing after reading & hearing about these multi-talented beings, I felt such a connection and immediately wanted to go and find one for myself. However, I am of the thought that wild animals need to stay in their original habitat, and rarely do octopuses that need help not go back into the ocean.
Whether you are a person who loves marine life/the beach or, like me, loves the mountains, this story of multiple octopuses and their adventures with the human world will touch your heart and make you a better person.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! Highly recommended!
RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages):
--"I knew little about octopuses—not even that the scientifically correct plural is not octopi, as I had always believed (it turns out you can’t put a Latin ending—i—on a word derived from Greek, such as octopus)." Hey wow, just like my buddy Jeremy Nelson said!
It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange." Like that one octopus escape video I posted on Facebook a coupla months back that got so much attention .
--"they are classed within the invertebrates as mollusks, as are slugs and snails and clams, animals that are not particularly renowned for their intellect. Clams don’t even have brains." Ironic taxonomic company that the octopus keeps.
--Victor Hugo was such a woefully ignorant phuquetard when it came to the octopus.
--"Her black pupil is a fat hyphen in a pearly globe. Its expression reminds me of the look in the eyes of paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses: serene, all-knowing, heavy with wisdom stretching back beyond time." Same can be said about cuttlefish. Squids' eyes, by contrast, aren't so dreamy-looking.
--"As I stroke her with my fingertips, her skin goes white beneath my touch. White is the color of a relaxed octopus; in cuttlefish, close relatives of octopus, females turn white when they encounter a fellow female, someone whom they need not fight or flee." In the immortal words of Johnny Carson, "I *did* not *know* that!"
I’ve always harbored a fondness for monsters. Even as a child, I had rooted for Godzilla and King Kong instead of for the people trying to kill them. It had seemed to me that these monsters’ irritation was perfectly reasonable. Nobody likes to be awakened from slumber by a nuclear explosion, so it was no wonder to me Godzilla was crabby; as for King Kong, few men would blame him for his attraction to pretty Fay Wray. (Though her screaming would have eventually put off anyone less patient than a gorilla.)" Haha, valid point.
--"'There’s always an effort to minimize emotion and intelligence in other species,' the New England Aquarium’s director of public relations, Tony LaCasse, said after I met Athena. 'The prejudice is particularly strong against fish and invertebrates,' agreed Scott." Against birds too, I would hasten to add.
--"Each arm seemed like a separate creature, with a mind of its own. In fact, this is almost literally true. Three fifths of octopuses’ neurons are not in the brain but in the arms." Just like discussed in the book "Other Minds."
--"And yet, this body, so unlike my own, was responding to my touch like a dog’s or a cat’s or a child’s. Even though her skin can change color and taste flavors, it, like mine, relaxes into a caress. And though her mouth is between her arms, and her saliva dissolves flesh, she, like me, clearly enjoys a good meal when she’s hungry." Aaww shucks.
--"If animals were conscious, according to one book, written by a Tufts University professor, dogs would untangle their leashes from poles and dolphins would leap out of tuna nets. (That author clearly doesn’t read Dear Abby. Why don’t those women leave their abusive husbands? Why won’t that couple just stop visiting the rude in-laws?)" Bingo.
--"'An aquarium without an octopus,' as the Victorian naturalist Henry Lee of Brighton, UK, wrote in 1875, 'is like a plum pudding without plums.'" Too bad Henry Lee couldn't slap some sense into Victor Hugo!
--"The eel was dreaming." Wow!
--"The students were supposed to refer to their animals by numbers in their research papers, but they ended up calling them by name: Jet Stream, Martha, Gertrude, Henry, Bob. Some were so friendly, Alexa said, 'they would lift their arms out of the water like a dog jumps up to greet you'—or like a child who wants to be lifted up and hugged." Jet Stream the Octopus = Jet the Dog?!?!
--"The bliss of stroking an octopus’s head is difficult to convey to most people, even to animal lovers." Must add this to my bucket list....
I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 for a few, relatively subjective reasons (others may find my reasons trifling, and give the full 5 stars):
— i think I wanted more stories/studies/etc. about the octopus, it's intelligence, and the state of research on it. What is currently "generally accepted" as known about them and what is not? There must certainly be many more stories (I hope) and studies demonstrating aspects of their intelligence/consciousness. I may have missed it somehow, but the famous (infamous?) "mirror" test for consciousness wasn't referred to; has it been tried? Why or why not? I suppose I wanted a bit more science and subject-based descriptions and less personal journey. Ditto on the many descriptions of the other animals in the Aquarium; maybe it's a bit OCD of me, but I found them annoying and distracting because I was so interested in reading the other parts of the book. The same could be said of the passages relating the many people that are part of the author's journey and personal life; however, these are kept to a minimum and in many ways enrich our understanding of the main theme; just to say it again: parts of the authors personal journey, and her and other people's emotional lives are integral to the book, and absolutely worth it. I enjoy and read about people, their lives, and much else of science and nature - I just wanted to read a focused book about octopus intelligence, emotions, etc. :-)
despite the foregoing criticism, while this book clearly contains some of that, it is still highly focused on the author's tireless (and courageous) curiosity as well as her relentless (though entirely empathetic) drive to create a bond with an individual of another species. Along the way I did learn and enjoy learning a lot about the Octopus and its mind and way of being in the world. It succeeds admirably - I picked it up one morning to kill a few minutes and couldn't put it down.
The other things that kept it from being a 5 was that her writing, while generally excellent, has the tendency to jump around quite a bit temporally - sometimes in the middle of relating sequential events. Combined with the necessary and interesting digressions into philosophy, cephalopod biology, etc. it can be confusing. It is as if she were torn between writing about Octopus souls and consciousness, etc. sprinkled with a few enlivening personal anecdotes vs. writing a straightforward, linear story of her life over this period of time. It is more the latter, but enough of the former to make it a mixture that is neither.
Finally, and this may bear on the other issues, is that it reads somewhat as if it were several articles/papers written over a period of time but stitched together - but stitched together pretty well, I should add, better than most I have read. Several chapters end on cliffhanger-type sentences; several start with fairly obvious "hook" sentences or paragraphs. Some seem much more like a magazine article relating a particular period in her life (like the scuba-diving stuff), and others more like typical "division of the content into chunks" type chapters. I don't begrudge an author needing to selling chunks of content first, especially given how long it may take a book to emerge and then survive the publishing endurance trial. I point it out mostly in the vain hope more authors will take better pains to write their _books_ as a self-consistent whole; certainly with prior material reused appropriately, but it shouldn't be noticeable as such. I also mention it because this author does seem to have tried to do just that and succeeded more than many.
As it often seems to be the case, my few nit picks take up most of the review. Give the wrong impression, I want to say again it was a wonderful, enjoyable read.
Top reviews from other countries

On the upside I now know for sure what the plural of octopus is and I am never likely to forget

The book suffers from a degree of repetition:
"They lay strands of eggs that look like grains of rice"
"She is protecting all those eggs, each of which is only the size of a grain of rice"
"Octopuses grow from the size of a grain of rice"
"Hatching from an egg the size of a grain of rice, one can grow both longer and heavier than a man in three years."
Yeah, we get the grain of rice thing! Enough already!
The book also strays into some slightly dodgy territory when the author religion and the "soul" of the octopus, and when she dips into anthropomorphism and tells us, with no evidence (because how could there be?) "we knew in that moment that Octavia had not only remembered us and recognized us; she had wanted to touch us again."

Instead you have many chapters of the authors personal experience meeting them (which gets very repetitive - you can only describe tentacles in so many ways). Lots of conjecture and flowery similes, and not much fact or deep thinking.
It would make a great article but not enough for a full length book.

