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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)
372 books
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459 friends
300 books
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124 friends
1,393 books
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440 friends
31 books
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59 friends
378 books
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100 friends
47 books
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183 friends
133 books
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158 friends
66 books
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14 friends
More friends…
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
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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
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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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Richard
rated a book liked it
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| The author seems to be extremely knowledgeably about fourteenth century warfare and people whose only purpose in life is to kill, as brutally as possible. These are not interests I share. Otherwise, the characterizations had a comic book quality, and ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| Well written, lots of historical details that rang true, and a good narrator. Also a touching relationship between the old printer and the 10-year-old child he is escorting back to family. | |
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Richard
rated a book liked it
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| I enjoyed this when it was just the story of an illicit romance between a married woman and her landlady. Then it turns into a murder story, and I lost interest. It's not a whodunit, since we know that up front. More a will-they-get-caught. It drags ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book liked it
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| I have enjoyed Banville's writing in the past, in the novel Ancient Light, for instance. So I picked this up on a whim. I suppose I should have known from the title, but was nonetheless disappointed to discover that it was a novel about murder. Also ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| My first Louise Erdrich, and I found her characters compelling, especially Kismet, her mother Crystal, and her love interest Hugo, and even the little shit Gary, to whom she is regrettably married. The environmental lessons were laid on a little thic ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book liked it
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| This is the fifth novel I've read this year with a novelist as the narrator or central character. That didn't help, though he--I think his name was Larry--was a good, perceptive observer. What he was observing, unfortunately, was the ... is bad too s ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book did not like it
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| A beach read romance set in a Nazi death camp is a truly horrible idea. The writing is artless and the characters are very thin cardboard. We get no sense of who Gita is, other than that she is young and beautiful, and not much more about Lale Sokolo ...more | |
“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 | 3266 | 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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1215 | 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 | 529 | 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 | 1012 | Apr 24, 2024 02:53PM |
