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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.
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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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12 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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3 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 it was ok
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| A book full of deplorable people. Maybe not the kind Hilary Clinton had in mind, but deplorable even so, with their monster houses in the Hamptons, and their money-driven, social climbing lives back in the city. I kept asking myself, "Why I am I read ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| I was besotted with this book as a small boy, both for the story of the mouse born to a human family and getting into unlikely adventures, and also for the wonderful illustrations by Garth Williams. So I re-read it recently, and still loved the part ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| For me, this was a compelling portrait of an interesting, though submissive woman, trapped in a marriage to a domineering, deluded man who regards himself first as a brilliant scientist and later as a spy. Though other readers here say Smiley describ ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| I enjoyed learning about Virginia Hall, an American spy who somehow managed to survive behind enemy lines and orchestrate French resistance through much of World War II. But the book is also frustrating because Hall told so few stories about what she ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book it was amazing
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| I loved this book, somewhat to my surprise. It wasn't the love story so much, or the story of the Stitch and Bitch Club taking on the leading polluter and employer in their town. Instead, I was caught up in Codi's fumbling attempts to understand her ...more | |
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Richard
rated a book liked it
![Men at Arms [Hardcover] by Evelyn Waugh](https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-1b903c9eac1b2ba789662c08a0ae41e6.png "Men at Arms [Hardcover] by Evelyn Waugh")
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| Mildly amusing Waugh. Maybe it would have helped if I were more familiar with military follies (and acronyms) of the WWII British variety. The Mustaches and all that. The chapter in which Guy Crouchback tries to bed his former wife was poignant for t ...more | |
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Richard
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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| This is a fine novel, beautifully written, and a demonstration that the counterfactual approach to history can sometimes be (or feel like) the true story. Did Mercy Bramble die on Gallows Rd. or ...? | |
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Richard
is starting Gallows Road
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Richard
rated a book really liked it
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The world he describes, and the abundance of species, feel now like a piece of the nineteenth century, though written in the 1920s. Beston has a remarkable eye for color, which shows up everywhere here. The narration by Barry Brett was unobtrusive. |
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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 | 3271 | 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 | 656 | 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 | 531 | 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 | 513 | Jan 29, 2020 10:25AM | |
| Nothing But Readi...: To-Read Weight Loss Challenge | 133 | 1014 | Apr 24, 2024 02:53PM |