The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tovah Bailey is a small, meditative book, a memoir of illness and observation. The reader is introduced to a tiny mollusk and its perambulations inside the author's room for recuperation from an undiagnosed disease. The reader is carried along at a comparable, snail-like pace, a slow, steady movement of words as the tiny creature moves through the cycles of its existence. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is filled with insights about the human body and the evolutionary development of humans and snails. This beautiful book works like a mind detox, a gentle return to amazement at small things.