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Richard’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Richard’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Richard Conniff’s Followers (83)
9 books
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539 friends
382 books
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459 friends
301 books
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52 books
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183 friends
119 books
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138 friends
31 books
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59 friends
1,394 books
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440 friends
379 books
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Richard Conniff
Goodreads Author
Born
Jersey City, NJ, The United States
Member Since
May 2012
How to Get Bitten by a Black Mamba
Plan carefully and keep your camera close at hand.
by Richard Conniff12–15 minutes
A black mamba sinks its fangs into the photographer. (Photo: Mark Laita)With apologies to readers who have already seen this piece on my substack, I want to reprint it here because the original account appeared on Strange Behaviors 12 years ago, and left behind a frustrating mystery. Here the mystery gets belatedl
Read more of this blog post »
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The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth
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published
2010
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13 editions
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The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide
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published
2002
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15 editions
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Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals
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published
2009
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8 editions
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Spineless Wonders: Strange Tales from the Invertebrate World
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published
1996
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13 editions
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The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature
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published
2005
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20 editions
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Every Creeping Thing: True Tales of Faintly Repulsive Wildlife
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published
1998
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8 editions
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House of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth
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published
2016
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4 editions
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Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion
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published
2023
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7 editions
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Rats! The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
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published
2002
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5 editions
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The Devil's Book of Verse: Masters of the Poison Pen from Ancient Times to the Present Day
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published
1983
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2 editions
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Richard’s Recent Updates
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| I don't normally read science fiction so this felt a little silly at first, with its wampeters and karasses, and the allegory seemed to trivialize the experience of living with possible nuclear apocalypse. But it grew on me, with so many lines that r ...more | |
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Richard
made a comment on
his review
of
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
"
Fine book, and Chris Knight is a great character, full of surprising knowledge and emotional depth. The author, Michael Finkel, does his background re
...more
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
by Michael Finkel (Goodreads Author) |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| I don't normally read science fiction so this felt a little silly at first, with its wampeters and karasses, and the allegory seemed to trivialize the experience of living with possible nuclear apocalypse. But it grew on me, with so many lines that r ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book it was amazing
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| Hard to separate whether this is a great book or Abraham Lincoln was a great man, maybe both. But, Lord, I had to fight back tears several times, not just at the end. Oh, for a president with such decency, such concern for the American people, and su ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book liked it
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| Suspenseful, but I felt little emotional connection to anyone in this novel. Why so? Part of the challenge is that Punke's main character is basically a loner, who inexplicably leaves the comforts of Philadelphia, where he has a promising job and a w ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| The opening chapter is a killer, on the murderous brutality of England in the 1500s, with appallingly cruel torture and execution dealt out almost whimsically, on a rumor of holding the wrong religious beliefs, or none at all. Then, the worst possibi ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| At first, I thought this was another mindless work in the young female Irish writer trend that requires frequent references to casual sex and use of the word "fucking." And I worried that it might also entail pretentious literary baggage, so basicall ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book liked it
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| The writing is beautiful, and the story evocative. But somehow it petered out for me. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe too many interesting characters, and too many good story lines wandering off in their own direction? Or maybe I was more easily distra ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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Edward Lear is one of my favorite children's authors, especially for his book "The Jumblies." This book takes a suitably fanciful approach to Lear's life story, and I enjoyed it, though without the delight that arises from reading Lear himself. ...more |
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“Once randomly aggressive behavior gets started in an organization, it tends to be contagious, rapidly spreading itself because of a built-in mammalian device for relieving stress, called redirected aggression. Stanford physiologist Robert Sapolsky describes it this way:“Numerous psychoendocrine studies show that in a stressful or frustrating circumstance, the magnitude of the subsequent stress-response is decreased if the organism is provided with an outlet for frustration. For example, the [glucocorticoid] secretion triggered by electric shock in a rat is diminished if the rat is provided with a bar of wood to gnaw on, a running wheel, or, as one of the most effective outlets, access to another rat to bite.”
― The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature
― The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature
“Wildlife is and should be useless in the same way art, music, poetry and even sports are useless. They are useless in the sense that they do nothing more than raise our spirits, make us laugh or cry, frighten, disturb and delight us. They connect us not just to what’s weird, different, other, but to a world where we humans do not matter nearly as much as we like to think.
And that should be enough.”
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And that should be enough.”
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Topics Mentioning This Author
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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The Seasonal Read...:
WINTER CHALLENGE 2009-2010 COMPLETED TASKS
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3143 | 3268 | Feb 28, 2010 09:02PM | |
| You'll love this ...: Sara's Low-Octane Alphabet Quest | 27 | 84 | Mar 22, 2013 07:04AM | |
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The Seasonal Read...:
Winter Challenge 2013: Completed Tasks (Do Not Delete Posts)
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2478 | 653 | Feb 28, 2014 09:00PM | |
| The History Book ...: ARCHIVE - SPOILER THREAD - SEPTEMBER - GLOSSARY - THE SIXTH EXTINCTION | 22 | 50 | Sep 17, 2015 10:04AM | |
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You'll love this ...:
New Purchases - 2015
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1214 | 204 | Dec 31, 2015 11:57AM | |
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The Seasonal Read...:
Spring Challenge 2016: Completed Tasks:PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS THREAD
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2923 | 530 | May 31, 2016 09:02PM | |
| Nothing But Readi...: Ashley's Reading Challenges | 165 | 213 | Jan 07, 2019 05:11PM | |
| The Book Vipers: * Last book(s) you acquired | 1293 | 511 | Jan 29, 2020 10:25AM | |
| Nothing But Readi...: To-Read Weight Loss Challenge | 133 | 1013 | Apr 24, 2024 02:53PM |
