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Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals
How does a tiny box jellyfish, with no brain and little control over where it goes in the water, manage to kill a full-grown man? What harm have hippos been known to inflict on humans, and why? What makes our closest cousin, the chimpanzee, the most dangerous of all apes to encounter in the wild?
In this elegantly illustrated, often darkly funny compendium of animal predation, Gordon Grice, hailed by Michael Pollan as “a fresh, strange, and wonderful new voice in American nature writing,” presents findings that are by turns surprising, humorous, and horrifying. Personally obsessed by both the menace and beauty of animals since he was six years old and a deadly cougar wandered onto his family’s farm, Grice now reaps a lifetime of study in this unique survey—at once a reading book and a resource.
Categorized by kind and informed throughout by the author’s unsentimental view of the natural order and our place in it, here are the hard-to-stomach, hard-to-resist facts and legends of animal encounters. Whether it’s the elephant that collided with a fuel tanker and lived (the tanker exploded), the turn-of-the-century household cure for a copperhead bite (douse the infected area in kerosene), or the shark that terrorized the New Jersey coastline for a summer (later inspiring the film Jaws), everything you’ve ever wanted to know about animals but were afraid to ask is included in this hair-raising, heart-racing volume. By turns wondrous, mordant, and sobering, this book is ultimately a celebration of the animal world—in all its perilous glory—by a writer who’s been heralded by The New York Times for his ability to combine “the observations of a naturalist with a dry, homespun philosopher’s wit.”
In this elegantly illustrated, often darkly funny compendium of animal predation, Gordon Grice, hailed by Michael Pollan as “a fresh, strange, and wonderful new voice in American nature writing,” presents findings that are by turns surprising, humorous, and horrifying. Personally obsessed by both the menace and beauty of animals since he was six years old and a deadly cougar wandered onto his family’s farm, Grice now reaps a lifetime of study in this unique survey—at once a reading book and a resource.
Categorized by kind and informed throughout by the author’s unsentimental view of the natural order and our place in it, here are the hard-to-stomach, hard-to-resist facts and legends of animal encounters. Whether it’s the elephant that collided with a fuel tanker and lived (the tanker exploded), the turn-of-the-century household cure for a copperhead bite (douse the infected area in kerosene), or the shark that terrorized the New Jersey coastline for a summer (later inspiring the film Jaws), everything you’ve ever wanted to know about animals but were afraid to ask is included in this hair-raising, heart-racing volume. By turns wondrous, mordant, and sobering, this book is ultimately a celebration of the animal world—in all its perilous glory—by a writer who’s been heralded by The New York Times for his ability to combine “the observations of a naturalist with a dry, homespun philosopher’s wit.”
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
37 people are currently reading
639 people want to read
About the author
Gordon Grice
27 books30 followersGordon Grice has written about the dark corners of biology for The New Yorker (where he tackled the history of post-mortem dissections), Harper’s (black widow spiders), and Discover (leprosy). His books include The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators and Deadly Kingdom (paperback: The Book of Deadly Animals). His other projects include National Geographic’s eBook short Shark Attacks: Inside the Mind of the Ocean’s Most Terrifying Predator and more than a dozen horror stories in magazines, including the Best of the ‘Net winner “The White Cat” and the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror runner-up “Hide.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
November 15, 2018
1,000 reviews from me to you!
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT HYENAS THEY WILL FUCKING END YOU
you know what will not fucking end you??
a red panda:
they will only wave at you in innocent fascination.
but basically, you are screwed. i mean, let's just take the U.S.
this is where the prairie rattlesnake lives:
this is where the diamond rattlesnake lives:
this is where you can find alligators:
here is a whole page about fatal bear attacks in north america:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...
mountain lions:
sharks:
i haven't even gotten started with the deer and the steer and the lizards and the insects.and i won't. that's what this book is for.
you know what does not live in the u.s. and would never ever harm you?
yeah. you got it.
basically, this book is one long warning - there is nowhere you are safe. especially india. there is no need to live in india. australia is a close second, but seriously. if you live in india, you are probably already dead, and if not, something is sneaking up on you right now; something is going to get you, and it is going to suck. also - live nowhere with the word "komodo" in its name, but that should really be common sense. i mean, you wouldn't live on "volcano street," would you?
biologists have found fifty-four dangerous species of bacteria in the dragon's mouth, including varieties of staph and strep. the eating of carrion and feces, along with the bleeding of its own gums, helps to maintain this infectious stew...as the dragon bites, it yanks its head backward, tearing the victim's flesh. venom oozing from the lower jaw enters the wound with the teeth...the dragon's copious bloody saliva lubricates the meal for easier swallowing. larger prey must first be torn apart. after digesting its meal, the dragon vomits a neat bundle of indigestible parts: teeth, hooves, hair, horns.
i mean, we can all agree that that is the worst thing in the world, right?
komodo dragons are jive.
but hyenas are the almost as bad. who knew, right? i thought they were mainly scavengers, and they seem to have such small little heads.
i mean, relatively. but jesus christ:
grice is quoting from another source, and i don't feel like being all proper in my citations but anyway so there is this guy who was bitten by a hyena, whose
face ended below his cheekbones: his nose, palate, upper teeth, tongue, and almost his entire lower jaw were gone. only his eyes and the upper part of his head remained intact and yet he was alive and moderately healthy and had taught himself to swallow food. he had received one bite, just one snap
holy shit, right? one bite and he lost half his face to some hyena. there is also a story in here about a woman who passed out during childbirth and came to to find a hyena eating her baby. seriously - hyenas are complete jive.
do you know who would never eat your baby??
too sleepy to eat ur babies.
oh god,and the primates....
monkey attack:
monkey attack:
monkey attack:
man. may i never be anywhere near a monkey. i like my face the way it is, more or less.
this book is good, but just a little superficial.i would love some long stories about these animals and their behavior. it is frequently more like a gossip rag from hell: "and then this animal did this to this person, and that one did that to another person...."
but horrifying, horrifying stuff. if you have any eye-sensitivity, do not read this book. the number of things that want to go for your eyes, or lay eggs in your eyes so they pop with new life... eeerrrggghhhh.
AND WHY NO CHAPTER ABOUT GOATS?? i accuse grice of being in the goats' pockets. because goats are just nasty mean animals with hooves and horns and a chip on their coarsely-haired shoulders.
i'm not sure what else i have to say about this book. i loved it and i am horrified by it and greg wrote a review of it here
there were so many more quotes i wanted to share. maybe i will float this later with "additional information."
and oh yeah:
i am not accepting any criticism today.
this book is for sarah montambo powell!!
come to my blog!
February 13, 2012
It rarely crosses my mind, but in theory (reality is a different story) I live with a predator with very efficient weapons and methods for killing.
Mooncheese mostly sleeps though, and she is scared of unknown things and is more likely to run up to you and rub up against you than to do anything that would cause anything harm, but somewhere she has all the instincts needed to dispatch small prey with a ruthlessness we'd call sadistic if a human acted in such a manner.
The first of maybe many asides....
A distant-distant relative of Mooncheese disproves the existence of god
In 2006, a visitor to the Kiev Zoo proclaimed, 'God will save me, if he exists,' and entered the lion enclosure, where a lioness instantly sliced his carotid artery.
This isn't the only case documented in this book of animals disproving the existence of a deity interested in interfering with human stupidity, arrogance and unnatural attempts at diluting the over-all gene pool with borderline insane actions.
Big predatory animals don't care what you believe in.
...back to the 'review'.
If you happen to forget the number of times some of these animal attacks actually happen, you are liable to start thinking that walking outside is going to probably fucking kill you. Most of the incidents in the book are super-duper rare. For example, ants can kill you, even in America where a ninety one year old woman living in a Texas nursing home was killed after being stung more than six hundred times by ants. What a fucked up way to go, you've lived through ninety something years of all the shit life has thrown at you, and then a swarm of ants kill you, while you're laying around in nursing home unable to move because of a broken hip.
Ok, that is an extreme example, and there is only one other similar case mentioned in the book of a slightly younger woman who received twice as many stings and similarly died, but still in theory you could end up being killed by ants!
But before the ants get you there are all kinds of animals out there that could inadvertently get you. From diseases spread through animals and the fleas and lice they carry, to their excrement, to you making the mistake to bend over in front of an angry deer who thinks you are challenging him and decides to crash into your head with antlers, to visiting the zoo (or the circus), to owning a dog, riding in an airplane that comes across a flock of birds, to getting infected by some creepy worm because you happened to swim in unclean waters, to being attacked by a rabid animal in your backyard, to having your face eaten off by an adolescent chimpanzee who looks so cute and just like the friendly ones in the movies that you just have to see if you can play with it, to so so so so so many other ways you might come across animals and either intentionally or unintentionally annoy them into attacking you. You might think that all of the animal kingdom is waiting outside to purposefully or accidently hurt or kill you after reading this book, of course if you look at the numbers, almost all of the cases here are either really rare, very dependent on living in poverty-stricken third world countries, being an asshole (or an idiot, don't try to feed lions from your car, don't try to pet a bear in the wild, don't pelt wild large wild animals with rocks and not expect the possibility of them attacking you back).
Even with the right provocation, or if they are rabid, even this cute little critter might attack.
.
One story in the book has a river otter making a predatory attack on a pet dog, another having a pet otter turning on people and having to be stopped by being beaten to death with shovels! But he does look so cute!
Another counter-claim to the existence of god by a creature whose species has existed longer than a biblical account of creation can account for.
....an Apostolic preacher led his flock into the Limpopo in 1988, promising them divine protection. Thirty six of them were killed by crocodiles.
Back to the review
The easy thing to do in a book like this is to blame either the animals or human stupidity / progress / greed / encroachment. In different cases sometimes there is one species to blame for a particular sort of attack, like elephants probably wouldn't be nearly as destructive in certain parts of the world if we hadn't cut off their lands with development so it's only natural that they start to come looking for food in villages. Or if you throw rocks at a gorilla and it can figure out how to get out of it's cage it is going to do it and be pretty pissed off at being attacked. A lot of the the incidents in the book come down more to animals and people being fairly poor judges of each others behaviors and motives. For example certain types of birds have a tendency to attack people, sometimes actually attack but more often just resorting to scare tactics like dive-bombing and various types of mobbing, because they think we give a shit about their nests when really were just walking around. Really neither of us are doing anything wrong, it's just a misunderstanding. Hippopotamuses see us as a threat if we happen to come between them and water when they are on land. For them we're engaging in a potentially threatening behavior, we might not even realize that we have just cut off the angle of escape for a hippo to the water.
This book could have easily fallen into a holier than thou environmentalist about how awful we are, it doesn't do that. It pretty much just lays out attacks and most of the time if humans are to blame it's because we (maybe this is stupidity, I think it's just our way of viewing the world) forget that we are just part of the world and that there is no biblical (or otherwise) injunction stating we are masters of the animals, nope we're just part of the animal world, it's just that most of the time those of us living in the first-world are pretty removed from most of the animal world, and those that we do encounter aren't too likely to think of us as a possible meal, but sometimes that is only because we're bigger than them. (On this idea, I don't know what to make of a woman who was a sponsor for a cheetah at a local zoo, and decided to steal keys to the cage, sneak into the zoo one night and let herself into the cheetah's cage. The cheetah doesn't care that you are giving some hard-earned money to provide for it, it doesn't care that you are a wildlife lover, it saw this as a walking meal and dispatched the woman. Maybe the woman was suicidal, or maybe she just thought that cheetah's in a zoo were tame, people with more experience with animals grace these pages doing things maybe not as glaringly stupid, but certainly stupid enough given the knowledge of the animals they had).
Quite a fun read.
And apparently foxes are only dangerous when they are rabid, so my own animal stupidity at wanting to own one (that sounds awful, I mean co-habit with one) might not be as monumentally stupid as it could be.
Mooncheese mostly sleeps though, and she is scared of unknown things and is more likely to run up to you and rub up against you than to do anything that would cause anything harm, but somewhere she has all the instincts needed to dispatch small prey with a ruthlessness we'd call sadistic if a human acted in such a manner.
The first of maybe many asides....
A distant-distant relative of Mooncheese disproves the existence of god
In 2006, a visitor to the Kiev Zoo proclaimed, 'God will save me, if he exists,' and entered the lion enclosure, where a lioness instantly sliced his carotid artery.
This isn't the only case documented in this book of animals disproving the existence of a deity interested in interfering with human stupidity, arrogance and unnatural attempts at diluting the over-all gene pool with borderline insane actions.
Big predatory animals don't care what you believe in.
...back to the 'review'.
If you happen to forget the number of times some of these animal attacks actually happen, you are liable to start thinking that walking outside is going to probably fucking kill you. Most of the incidents in the book are super-duper rare. For example, ants can kill you, even in America where a ninety one year old woman living in a Texas nursing home was killed after being stung more than six hundred times by ants. What a fucked up way to go, you've lived through ninety something years of all the shit life has thrown at you, and then a swarm of ants kill you, while you're laying around in nursing home unable to move because of a broken hip.
Ok, that is an extreme example, and there is only one other similar case mentioned in the book of a slightly younger woman who received twice as many stings and similarly died, but still in theory you could end up being killed by ants!
But before the ants get you there are all kinds of animals out there that could inadvertently get you. From diseases spread through animals and the fleas and lice they carry, to their excrement, to you making the mistake to bend over in front of an angry deer who thinks you are challenging him and decides to crash into your head with antlers, to visiting the zoo (or the circus), to owning a dog, riding in an airplane that comes across a flock of birds, to getting infected by some creepy worm because you happened to swim in unclean waters, to being attacked by a rabid animal in your backyard, to having your face eaten off by an adolescent chimpanzee who looks so cute and just like the friendly ones in the movies that you just have to see if you can play with it, to so so so so so many other ways you might come across animals and either intentionally or unintentionally annoy them into attacking you. You might think that all of the animal kingdom is waiting outside to purposefully or accidently hurt or kill you after reading this book, of course if you look at the numbers, almost all of the cases here are either really rare, very dependent on living in poverty-stricken third world countries, being an asshole (or an idiot, don't try to feed lions from your car, don't try to pet a bear in the wild, don't pelt wild large wild animals with rocks and not expect the possibility of them attacking you back).
Even with the right provocation, or if they are rabid, even this cute little critter might attack.
.One story in the book has a river otter making a predatory attack on a pet dog, another having a pet otter turning on people and having to be stopped by being beaten to death with shovels! But he does look so cute!
Another counter-claim to the existence of god by a creature whose species has existed longer than a biblical account of creation can account for.
....an Apostolic preacher led his flock into the Limpopo in 1988, promising them divine protection. Thirty six of them were killed by crocodiles.
Back to the review
The easy thing to do in a book like this is to blame either the animals or human stupidity / progress / greed / encroachment. In different cases sometimes there is one species to blame for a particular sort of attack, like elephants probably wouldn't be nearly as destructive in certain parts of the world if we hadn't cut off their lands with development so it's only natural that they start to come looking for food in villages. Or if you throw rocks at a gorilla and it can figure out how to get out of it's cage it is going to do it and be pretty pissed off at being attacked. A lot of the the incidents in the book come down more to animals and people being fairly poor judges of each others behaviors and motives. For example certain types of birds have a tendency to attack people, sometimes actually attack but more often just resorting to scare tactics like dive-bombing and various types of mobbing, because they think we give a shit about their nests when really were just walking around. Really neither of us are doing anything wrong, it's just a misunderstanding. Hippopotamuses see us as a threat if we happen to come between them and water when they are on land. For them we're engaging in a potentially threatening behavior, we might not even realize that we have just cut off the angle of escape for a hippo to the water.
This book could have easily fallen into a holier than thou environmentalist about how awful we are, it doesn't do that. It pretty much just lays out attacks and most of the time if humans are to blame it's because we (maybe this is stupidity, I think it's just our way of viewing the world) forget that we are just part of the world and that there is no biblical (or otherwise) injunction stating we are masters of the animals, nope we're just part of the animal world, it's just that most of the time those of us living in the first-world are pretty removed from most of the animal world, and those that we do encounter aren't too likely to think of us as a possible meal, but sometimes that is only because we're bigger than them. (On this idea, I don't know what to make of a woman who was a sponsor for a cheetah at a local zoo, and decided to steal keys to the cage, sneak into the zoo one night and let herself into the cheetah's cage. The cheetah doesn't care that you are giving some hard-earned money to provide for it, it doesn't care that you are a wildlife lover, it saw this as a walking meal and dispatched the woman. Maybe the woman was suicidal, or maybe she just thought that cheetah's in a zoo were tame, people with more experience with animals grace these pages doing things maybe not as glaringly stupid, but certainly stupid enough given the knowledge of the animals they had).
Quite a fun read.
And apparently foxes are only dangerous when they are rabid, so my own animal stupidity at wanting to own one (that sounds awful, I mean co-habit with one) might not be as monumentally stupid as it could be.
April 20, 2025
I decided to reread this book before I donate it for a library book sale. As is usual for a book I reread, I remember some things very well and some things I had completely forgotten. For instance, I remembered very well the chapter on hyenas and that they have the most powerful bite of any mammal. They can crack bones and even eat the bones.. Anyway, my original review is as follows-
This is a book which I enjoyed greatly. It's about animals and that's the main reason I liked it. And it's crammed full of facts about the animals. The main point is that there are a lot of dangerous animals out there.
The book begins with a chapter on wolves and their relatives. Do people still believe in the image of the Big Bad Wolf? Actually, "Man's Best Friend"--the dog--an animal I can't imagine NOT being in my life--is far more dangerous. There are an estimated 4.7 million dog bites each year in the United States alone. The book then covers bears, cats, and other carnivorids. There's a section on aquatic dangers and sharks come to mind first. But the seas are teeming with all kinds of dangers, box jellyfish being among the worst. Then there are the dangers posed by snakes, crocodilians, lizards, and birds.
Among the most dangerous animals of all have to be insects. Mosquitoes infect humans with malaria--which kills 1.5-2.7 million people each year, and leaves millions more in chronic ill health. And don't forget fleas, lice and wasps and bees. And ants. And worms get a whole chapter, as well as spiders.
The book ends with various animals such as elephants, rodents, monkeys, and apes.
In the conclusion, the point is made that humans are the best killers of all, not only at killing each other, but they kill millions of other animals for food and sport, etc. And our most effective means of killing is through our global environmental destruction. We pollute our air and water. We are turning our planet into one vast garbage dump. What's the most dangerous animal of all? Look in the mirror.
This is a book which I enjoyed greatly. It's about animals and that's the main reason I liked it. And it's crammed full of facts about the animals. The main point is that there are a lot of dangerous animals out there.
The book begins with a chapter on wolves and their relatives. Do people still believe in the image of the Big Bad Wolf? Actually, "Man's Best Friend"--the dog--an animal I can't imagine NOT being in my life--is far more dangerous. There are an estimated 4.7 million dog bites each year in the United States alone. The book then covers bears, cats, and other carnivorids. There's a section on aquatic dangers and sharks come to mind first. But the seas are teeming with all kinds of dangers, box jellyfish being among the worst. Then there are the dangers posed by snakes, crocodilians, lizards, and birds.
Among the most dangerous animals of all have to be insects. Mosquitoes infect humans with malaria--which kills 1.5-2.7 million people each year, and leaves millions more in chronic ill health. And don't forget fleas, lice and wasps and bees. And ants. And worms get a whole chapter, as well as spiders.
The book ends with various animals such as elephants, rodents, monkeys, and apes.
In the conclusion, the point is made that humans are the best killers of all, not only at killing each other, but they kill millions of other animals for food and sport, etc. And our most effective means of killing is through our global environmental destruction. We pollute our air and water. We are turning our planet into one vast garbage dump. What's the most dangerous animal of all? Look in the mirror.
April 19, 2022
You might ask why anyone would want to read this book about the many ways a person can find serious trouble in nature. Well, it’s very well written. Gordon Grice is a thorough yet very interesting researcher, journalist, and lover of some mighty creepy critters. Best, he’s very funny. Dry, ironic and sometimes dark. Right up my alley!
Readers learn about many of the creatures who can be dangerous to man, some you might never think of. There are the obvious ones like sharks, bears and other animals who are big and have sharp teeth. But the insects, oh my. The chapters are by types such as mammals, sea creatures, insects and primates. Primates are worst of all, especially the top primates, us.
It’s obvious that people can do incredibly stupid things and come to grief. You may congratulate yourself for not choosing to push your child towards a buffalo for a photo op. Unfortunately, many people get hurt just going about their normal lives. There but for the grace of God…. Human populations are increasingly encroaching on the territory of wild animals. Predation can happen but it’s more likely that the creatures are stressed for one reason or another.
Grice looks at the little things that can have big impact. Mites, ticks, fleas, tapeworms, and birds that spit vile noxious fluids. The pictures and illustrations are great throughout. I don’t consider myself a snake phobe, but felt a little squirmy when trying to read about snakes while they were looking right at me. A tip—turn the page with a sticky note in hand and quickly slap it over the picture. Then read in peace.
I’m going to find more books by this guy. Lots of fun.
Readers learn about many of the creatures who can be dangerous to man, some you might never think of. There are the obvious ones like sharks, bears and other animals who are big and have sharp teeth. But the insects, oh my. The chapters are by types such as mammals, sea creatures, insects and primates. Primates are worst of all, especially the top primates, us.
It’s obvious that people can do incredibly stupid things and come to grief. You may congratulate yourself for not choosing to push your child towards a buffalo for a photo op. Unfortunately, many people get hurt just going about their normal lives. There but for the grace of God…. Human populations are increasingly encroaching on the territory of wild animals. Predation can happen but it’s more likely that the creatures are stressed for one reason or another.
Grice looks at the little things that can have big impact. Mites, ticks, fleas, tapeworms, and birds that spit vile noxious fluids. The pictures and illustrations are great throughout. I don’t consider myself a snake phobe, but felt a little squirmy when trying to read about snakes while they were looking right at me. A tip—turn the page with a sticky note in hand and quickly slap it over the picture. Then read in peace.
I’m going to find more books by this guy. Lots of fun.
January 17, 2017
Over the course of my reviews, I always come across as someone who loves fairy tales and these stories have a nasty habit. They tend to anthropomorphize animals and this might have in some way led us to believe that animals do harbour emotions very similar to that of human beings. Nothing could be farther from the truth is what the accounts in this book lead us to believe. One can always argue that a pet dog or a cat display emotions close to what a human being cherishes but someone who tries this principle on a wolf or a coyote (which is technically a canine ergo dog !) is bound to end up in disaster. Gordon Grice’s book is an account of the times when man and animal come into conflict with deadly consequences for one or both of the parties in question.
The book is divided into largish chapters each of which deal with one family of the animal kingdom. There is a general overview of the animal, where it inhabits, chances of its interactions with human beings and the anecdotes of such conflicts. Grice tries to cover most of the deadly animals that inhabit the land, the air and the sea in his book. Some of the incidents covered here are life threatening and truly horrifying and yet he declines the tempting way out to call the animal as guilty. In cases where there is data available, Grice points out that either the animal in question was a rogue or that the human being purposefully intimidated the animal. An example that instantly comes to my mind is the attack on three young men in the SFO zoo in 2007 by the Siberian Tigress – Tatiana. The case was pretty much open and shut that the men in question had taunted the tiger which then jumped over the moat and the retaining wall to attack them. This is but one side of the man-animal conflict where it is pure ignorance, arrogance or outright stupidity that provokes an attack. The second cause is even more controversial – the expansion of human population and the shrinking of wilderness. The disappearance of habitat has brought in many a large animal in conflict with humans. The outcome is tragic in terms of life or property damage that humans have to endure and that is not something large groups of people take lightly. Elephants in Asia and specifically in India are such a case when they enter cultivated lands that border the jungles and wreak havoc on them. Then again there are times when all that a human being would be doing would be to mind his or her business when all of a sudden an animal decides to attack. It is proven that some animals are capable of extreme aggression and have the wherewithal to take care of us.
The most important aspect that this book points out to a reader is the number of astounding ways in which one can meet their death. The animals that share the planet with us are not all of them deadly killers waiting for a chance to murder us and yet provocation and sometimes sheer bad luck can be the last thing you ever see. It needn’t be something as large as an elephant or a hippo that can spell your doom, out in Australia you have the Irukandji jellyfish ( 5 - 25 mm in size) which can take you out in a matter of hours. Nature is scary isn’t it ?
Gordon Grice is not an impartial writer for he has certain favourite topics which he waxes eloquently about. While you get beautifully written passages on the lives of spiders, ants, snakes and lizards the chapters on larger animals are clinical and dispassionate. So unless you are very much attuned to these animals, the latter chapters on the arachnids, insects and reptiles are going to be a drag for you. Personally I went into the book looking for a clinical approach on the man-animal conflict but this wasn’t a fully satisfying book on that. Granted that Grice has a repertoire of amazing anecdotes and yet they are short and crisp in terms of some animals and detailed in case of others. In short : it lacks consistency in terms of subject matter.
If you have not read/seen of man-animal conflicts, this would be a good book. Else it is a rehash of things you know.
The book is divided into largish chapters each of which deal with one family of the animal kingdom. There is a general overview of the animal, where it inhabits, chances of its interactions with human beings and the anecdotes of such conflicts. Grice tries to cover most of the deadly animals that inhabit the land, the air and the sea in his book. Some of the incidents covered here are life threatening and truly horrifying and yet he declines the tempting way out to call the animal as guilty. In cases where there is data available, Grice points out that either the animal in question was a rogue or that the human being purposefully intimidated the animal. An example that instantly comes to my mind is the attack on three young men in the SFO zoo in 2007 by the Siberian Tigress – Tatiana. The case was pretty much open and shut that the men in question had taunted the tiger which then jumped over the moat and the retaining wall to attack them. This is but one side of the man-animal conflict where it is pure ignorance, arrogance or outright stupidity that provokes an attack. The second cause is even more controversial – the expansion of human population and the shrinking of wilderness. The disappearance of habitat has brought in many a large animal in conflict with humans. The outcome is tragic in terms of life or property damage that humans have to endure and that is not something large groups of people take lightly. Elephants in Asia and specifically in India are such a case when they enter cultivated lands that border the jungles and wreak havoc on them. Then again there are times when all that a human being would be doing would be to mind his or her business when all of a sudden an animal decides to attack. It is proven that some animals are capable of extreme aggression and have the wherewithal to take care of us.
The most important aspect that this book points out to a reader is the number of astounding ways in which one can meet their death. The animals that share the planet with us are not all of them deadly killers waiting for a chance to murder us and yet provocation and sometimes sheer bad luck can be the last thing you ever see. It needn’t be something as large as an elephant or a hippo that can spell your doom, out in Australia you have the Irukandji jellyfish ( 5 - 25 mm in size) which can take you out in a matter of hours. Nature is scary isn’t it ?
Gordon Grice is not an impartial writer for he has certain favourite topics which he waxes eloquently about. While you get beautifully written passages on the lives of spiders, ants, snakes and lizards the chapters on larger animals are clinical and dispassionate. So unless you are very much attuned to these animals, the latter chapters on the arachnids, insects and reptiles are going to be a drag for you. Personally I went into the book looking for a clinical approach on the man-animal conflict but this wasn’t a fully satisfying book on that. Granted that Grice has a repertoire of amazing anecdotes and yet they are short and crisp in terms of some animals and detailed in case of others. In short : it lacks consistency in terms of subject matter.
If you have not read/seen of man-animal conflicts, this would be a good book. Else it is a rehash of things you know.
October 9, 2014
Whoa! Finishing it is like making an exit from a vast zoo of the deadly animals.I could not help it. Gordon Grice took me on a tour of the different animal kingdoms. Passing each ghastly kingdom awoke me to the reality more that living on this earth is not ideally safe after all. Everyone could be a victim of brutal predation. In fact, I got giddier and more terrified when I came upon the kingdom of nematodes. God forbid! How terrible the world is! No matter how hygienic we try to be, we can be susceptible to invisible living organisms.
I revere Gordon Grice for his enthusiasm for and dedication to studying or “psychologizing” all kinds of animals although he is not a known scientist. Reading his book gives me the idea of how he is such an animal lover.
There are two messages Gordon Grice wants to imply in his book. First, there are no such harmless animals. Even ordinary or domesticated animals are unpredictable; they can pose danger to us. Second, since animals are not as intelligent as we are, they can be aggressive in humans only based on biological drives. However, they can learn so once we, humans, no longer draw the line. In other words, psychology works on them too.
The book, however, is not utterly educational or informative more than I expected. It is awash with brutal predation and traumatic experiences of the victims who fell prey to deadly animals. So when you read it, you might hold your breath for every instances of heinous symbiotic food chain among animals. Nonetheless, the farther you go, the sicker you become of knowing the first-hand accounts. Enough said! I guess Gordon Grice only shares sparse information. Thus, my brain was not completely satiated. Perhaps no sooner had I seen the title THE BOOK OF….than the first idea occurred to me was that the book was encyclopedic with trivia or facts I may not have been cognizant of. Rather, I enjoyed learning the new vocabulary words, especially the proper collective nouns for the animals. In addition, the book is well written.
I am a certifiable ailurophile. I love cats. I have got two domesticated cats. Also, I could be such an animal lover. If I were well-to-do, I might pet as many as I could although I’m aware of the facts G. Grice wants to apprise us of. Like what I learned from biology subjects, I believe that in order to avoid such ineluctable “devourers”, we must be more responsible for balancing the nature, for we are the highest mammal in the kingdom animalia. Sad to say, we are still incorrigible.
I revere Gordon Grice for his enthusiasm for and dedication to studying or “psychologizing” all kinds of animals although he is not a known scientist. Reading his book gives me the idea of how he is such an animal lover.
There are two messages Gordon Grice wants to imply in his book. First, there are no such harmless animals. Even ordinary or domesticated animals are unpredictable; they can pose danger to us. Second, since animals are not as intelligent as we are, they can be aggressive in humans only based on biological drives. However, they can learn so once we, humans, no longer draw the line. In other words, psychology works on them too.
The book, however, is not utterly educational or informative more than I expected. It is awash with brutal predation and traumatic experiences of the victims who fell prey to deadly animals. So when you read it, you might hold your breath for every instances of heinous symbiotic food chain among animals. Nonetheless, the farther you go, the sicker you become of knowing the first-hand accounts. Enough said! I guess Gordon Grice only shares sparse information. Thus, my brain was not completely satiated. Perhaps no sooner had I seen the title THE BOOK OF….than the first idea occurred to me was that the book was encyclopedic with trivia or facts I may not have been cognizant of. Rather, I enjoyed learning the new vocabulary words, especially the proper collective nouns for the animals. In addition, the book is well written.
I am a certifiable ailurophile. I love cats. I have got two domesticated cats. Also, I could be such an animal lover. If I were well-to-do, I might pet as many as I could although I’m aware of the facts G. Grice wants to apprise us of. Like what I learned from biology subjects, I believe that in order to avoid such ineluctable “devourers”, we must be more responsible for balancing the nature, for we are the highest mammal in the kingdom animalia. Sad to say, we are still incorrigible.
February 11, 2019
Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals is rather predictable in its contents. It is about dangerous animals, some expected and some perhaps not. The book is divided into sections based upon what order of animal killing humans is being represented in that section. Marine Animals. Reptiles and Birds. Arthropods and Insects. Mammals. Etc. Then, within these sections, information is presented according to what class of animals is being presented. For instance, canines, felines, birds as a catchall, sharks, etc.
Why do tapeworms keep showing up in the books I read? Now I can never forget the fact that they can grow to be up to 82 feet long in the human body. I just need to live with that fact now.
The low rating in this case is due to the fact that there is some misinformation presented within the book. The author does little to separate when the animals in question are being provoked into attack vs. when they are viewing predation of humans as a matter of course. Further, the author doesn't present in many cases how unusual some attacks are. The information regarding rats as violent, aggressive creatures, for instance didn't take into account the fact that them running on humans is almost always them attempting to run away rather than attack the humans in question. The fact that they bite babies on the lips is also not a substantiated fact but rather a myth. Further, they were not the harbringers of plague they are commonly presented as, but rather the vectors for fleas. The author oddly has more of a soft spot for snakes, arthropods, and insects but seems to treat rodents with great disdain. At least the information on sharks was good and dissuading of common myths.
The simple fact is that wild animals are indeed wild and need to be treated with respect according to that status. That having been said, it is perfectly possible to interact with them if you have the knowledge of their body language, how to handle them, etc. This book was more fearmongering than much else when it provided a whole host of inaccurate information regarding the hierarchical nature of canines, and wolfdogs "turning" on their owners. These are the sorts of myths that get wolfdogs unfairly euthanized in shelters rather than brought to proper rescues or finding proper experienced owners.
So, yes, this book is a bit of out of date in the information it presents and more fearmongering than accurate when it comes to fair bit of animal predation. More exotic animal owners exist than one would think, and them being injured or killed by their animals is a far rarer occurrence than media would have you believe. The bulk of them are quite responsible, even with the big scary creatures they live with.
Why do tapeworms keep showing up in the books I read? Now I can never forget the fact that they can grow to be up to 82 feet long in the human body. I just need to live with that fact now.
The low rating in this case is due to the fact that there is some misinformation presented within the book. The author does little to separate when the animals in question are being provoked into attack vs. when they are viewing predation of humans as a matter of course. Further, the author doesn't present in many cases how unusual some attacks are. The information regarding rats as violent, aggressive creatures, for instance didn't take into account the fact that them running on humans is almost always them attempting to run away rather than attack the humans in question. The fact that they bite babies on the lips is also not a substantiated fact but rather a myth. Further, they were not the harbringers of plague they are commonly presented as, but rather the vectors for fleas. The author oddly has more of a soft spot for snakes, arthropods, and insects but seems to treat rodents with great disdain. At least the information on sharks was good and dissuading of common myths.
The simple fact is that wild animals are indeed wild and need to be treated with respect according to that status. That having been said, it is perfectly possible to interact with them if you have the knowledge of their body language, how to handle them, etc. This book was more fearmongering than much else when it provided a whole host of inaccurate information regarding the hierarchical nature of canines, and wolfdogs "turning" on their owners. These are the sorts of myths that get wolfdogs unfairly euthanized in shelters rather than brought to proper rescues or finding proper experienced owners.
So, yes, this book is a bit of out of date in the information it presents and more fearmongering than accurate when it comes to fair bit of animal predation. More exotic animal owners exist than one would think, and them being injured or killed by their animals is a far rarer occurrence than media would have you believe. The bulk of them are quite responsible, even with the big scary creatures they live with.
July 19, 2010
fascinating, and terrifying. i couldn't put it down despite the fact that i spent the night tossing and turning after reading it, my dreams interrupted with images grisly and outsized: me flailing in deep water, about to be eaten by a leopard seal; a baby stolen from a crib by a hyena and devoured. creepy, but then i have always had a bit of a morbid streak, and an attraction to the disgusting that can rival that of any little boy.
that being said, while the book is deeply interesting throughout, and thoroughly researched so as to be based in fact, there are certain chapters that read more like outlandish science fiction/horror, and i wish i could remove from my brain with a tweezer tidbits from the chapters on insects and rodents and such. nature in its endless variation is, in a word, terrifying. who knew there were so many painful and hideous ways to die?? or worse, to survive in a condition of endless ill-health and deformity? i shudder to think of meeting a brown recluse, or a single malarial mosquito.... eugh. it's enough to make a person want to live in a bubble.
which is not to say that grice is an alarmist by any means. he takes great pains to illustrate the rarity of death by poisonous or aggressive animal (in certain parts of the world, like where i live, anyway), and in fact is insistent upon implicating willful or ignorant humans in situations that ended badly due to said willfulness or ignorance. the history of nature writing and reporting is fraught with bias, with animals anthropomorphized to meet some human standard of evil- or where the animal is exculpated wrongfully, the aggression dismissed as an aberration despite its abundant presence in the history of that species' interactions with man- both approaches dismissing the essential nature of, well, wild nature, and also discounting the inevitable miscommunication and confusion involved when humans tangle with wild things. our understanding is limited to what we know- what that charging bear knows and perceives as a threat may be totally different.
i enjoyed especially the first chapters on predatory mammals. i feel kinship with grice in his stance on loving animals and nature both for their beauty, and for their dark sides. i appreciated the book also as a lengthy reminder that, contrary to what we think and feel, we humans are not special or higher than anything else on this glorious tangled mess of a planet, and now and then, things small and large will take a bite out of us to remind us of that fact. not that that isn't terrifying, but it's also kinda cool.
that being said, while the book is deeply interesting throughout, and thoroughly researched so as to be based in fact, there are certain chapters that read more like outlandish science fiction/horror, and i wish i could remove from my brain with a tweezer tidbits from the chapters on insects and rodents and such. nature in its endless variation is, in a word, terrifying. who knew there were so many painful and hideous ways to die?? or worse, to survive in a condition of endless ill-health and deformity? i shudder to think of meeting a brown recluse, or a single malarial mosquito.... eugh. it's enough to make a person want to live in a bubble.
which is not to say that grice is an alarmist by any means. he takes great pains to illustrate the rarity of death by poisonous or aggressive animal (in certain parts of the world, like where i live, anyway), and in fact is insistent upon implicating willful or ignorant humans in situations that ended badly due to said willfulness or ignorance. the history of nature writing and reporting is fraught with bias, with animals anthropomorphized to meet some human standard of evil- or where the animal is exculpated wrongfully, the aggression dismissed as an aberration despite its abundant presence in the history of that species' interactions with man- both approaches dismissing the essential nature of, well, wild nature, and also discounting the inevitable miscommunication and confusion involved when humans tangle with wild things. our understanding is limited to what we know- what that charging bear knows and perceives as a threat may be totally different.
i enjoyed especially the first chapters on predatory mammals. i feel kinship with grice in his stance on loving animals and nature both for their beauty, and for their dark sides. i appreciated the book also as a lengthy reminder that, contrary to what we think and feel, we humans are not special or higher than anything else on this glorious tangled mess of a planet, and now and then, things small and large will take a bite out of us to remind us of that fact. not that that isn't terrifying, but it's also kinda cool.
February 3, 2012
Gordon Grice’s treatise, The Book of Deadly Animals, reads a little bit like a season of “When Animals Attack”. The stories will have you rethinking that African safari you wanted to take; that Alaskan cruise; that Australian surfing vacation; or even a trip to the shed in your own yard.
From lions to alligators, hyenas, sharks and cockroaches, Grice takes readers on a fascinating tour through the animal kingdom. He doesn’t just recount the stories of attacks but...(read the rest of my review HERE
From lions to alligators, hyenas, sharks and cockroaches, Grice takes readers on a fascinating tour through the animal kingdom. He doesn’t just recount the stories of attacks but...(read the rest of my review HERE
August 7, 2015
Whilst reading this I was interested in the various animals and the reasons for the attacks, from humans doing foolish things to genuine cases of predation.
I've been interested in family history and know of at least one ancestor killed by an animal, even have a copy of his death certificate with the cause described as from injuries resulting in being kicked by a horse under a moving railway carriage. Sadly it was a few days before Christmas and his wedding anniversary in 1901, it even mentions the accident on my great great grandfather's headstone.
I've been interested in family history and know of at least one ancestor killed by an animal, even have a copy of his death certificate with the cause described as from injuries resulting in being kicked by a horse under a moving railway carriage. Sadly it was a few days before Christmas and his wedding anniversary in 1901, it even mentions the accident on my great great grandfather's headstone.
March 24, 2021
Grice gives a quite comprehensive lowdown on most animals that can possibly eat you, poison you, bite your finger, or rip your face off. He deals with big carnivores, sea urchins, dive-bombing birds, ants, rats, yacht-sinking sea lions, baby-snatching baboons, and shrews with a venomous bite. The fact-laden account is suitably laced with tales of terror, but it strives for balance and accuracy. It's a fun way to soak up tons of info. on animal-human relations in every corner of the globe.
June 16, 2018
Just before I read this, I read two other books called "Wicked Plants" and "Wicked Bugs". Having finished this one, I'm now afraid to leave the house.
Joke's on me! Because according to the author, the house isn't safe either -- in fact, it might be even scarier than the great outdoors!
Seriously, this is a very informative book about the animals we share the planet with. It also vindicated me, as I'm constantly telling my kids that even our pets, the ones we welcome into our homes, are still animals and subject to the imperatives of instinct and heredity. For example, a pet monkey (not that we will EVER have one), may be anthropomorphic to the point that you dress it up in clothes and potty train it, but it is STILL a monkey and if it gets mad or feels threatened it'll rip your face right off (I know because I read it here).
Anyway, I learned a lot and no longer feel safe anyplace and now I wonder why the cats keep looking at me like that.
Joke's on me! Because according to the author, the house isn't safe either -- in fact, it might be even scarier than the great outdoors!
Seriously, this is a very informative book about the animals we share the planet with. It also vindicated me, as I'm constantly telling my kids that even our pets, the ones we welcome into our homes, are still animals and subject to the imperatives of instinct and heredity. For example, a pet monkey (not that we will EVER have one), may be anthropomorphic to the point that you dress it up in clothes and potty train it, but it is STILL a monkey and if it gets mad or feels threatened it'll rip your face right off (I know because I read it here).
Anyway, I learned a lot and no longer feel safe anyplace and now I wonder why the cats keep looking at me like that.
September 9, 2013
This book is little more than a front-to-back series of compelling facts and bits of trivia about the many ways in which everything from bears to dogs to pigs to guinea worms can ruin your day. It doesn't have much connective tissue, but the author's dry wit and dark humor save it from being boring -- despite a rather academic structure.
Only reason I can't give it five stars is because I remain skeptical of some of the accounts and statements in the book. I don't think Grice ever states anything outright false, but I do think he may occasionally succumb to the deadly allure of his subject matter and overreach a bit.
Still, I couldn't stop reading this book.
Only reason I can't give it five stars is because I remain skeptical of some of the accounts and statements in the book. I don't think Grice ever states anything outright false, but I do think he may occasionally succumb to the deadly allure of his subject matter and overreach a bit.
Still, I couldn't stop reading this book.
December 20, 2018
I realized I hadn't read a good pop science/animals & nature book in a long, long time, and there this was in my pile. It was exactly what I wanted: not at all dry, and full of fun facts and gross stories.
Gordon Grice breaks down the animal kingdom into categories, then tells you how that category has killed man, either intentionally (predation) or unintentionally (as disease carriers). Most of the stories were fun to read--actually, all of them were fun to read, but I got really freaked out by the chapter on worms. I was pretty convinced I had some kind of intestinal parasite by the end. Other than that, though, who isn't entertained by big cats eating people?
Gordon Grice breaks down the animal kingdom into categories, then tells you how that category has killed man, either intentionally (predation) or unintentionally (as disease carriers). Most of the stories were fun to read--actually, all of them were fun to read, but I got really freaked out by the chapter on worms. I was pretty convinced I had some kind of intestinal parasite by the end. Other than that, though, who isn't entertained by big cats eating people?
Want to read
April 17, 2019Although sometimes heavy on the anecdotal, this was a fun overview of all of living things that can kill us. It's not annotated and not extraordinarily detailed, but it does have a section for further, in-depth reading if you are inclined to learn more about the dangers lurking... well, everywhere. As someone fascinated by the threat posed by other creatures, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the mix of stories and facts.
December 20, 2017
From the eyes of a fictional story lover, non fiction stories are not really my favorite. Most of the time, I dislike reading non fiction books. While I was stumbling through my school library, I found this book, Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals.
This book is about, well, dangerous animals. It is more than just dogs and cats. This book mention animals such as lions, hyenas, box jellyfish, ostriches, sharks, tapeworms & other insects, monkeys, and many other types of animals. It was very interesting to learn new facts about some animals that I didn’t know much about.
This book is very informational, but I have to warn you. Some parts of the book can be VERY graphic and intense. If you are mature enough to handle blood and death, I would recommend this book to you
This book is about, well, dangerous animals. It is more than just dogs and cats. This book mention animals such as lions, hyenas, box jellyfish, ostriches, sharks, tapeworms & other insects, monkeys, and many other types of animals. It was very interesting to learn new facts about some animals that I didn’t know much about.
This book is very informational, but I have to warn you. Some parts of the book can be VERY graphic and intense. If you are mature enough to handle blood and death, I would recommend this book to you
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 18, 2010
Deadly Kingdom is excellent, well-researched, well-written and full of interesting if frightening facts about animals. The author is not sentimental or sensational,he simply records facts and incidents where animals have maimed or killed people by various means and lets the reader draw his own conclusions. Since many of these animals live in Asia, Africa or other faraway places I did feel a small sense of relief--it is not likely I will encounter a tiger or gorilla on my way home. Other animals such as spiders are everywhere and the potential for danger exists.
The book divides animals by type--carnivorids; aquatic dangers; reptiles and birds; insects; arthropods and worms and other mammals. Dogs, cats and bears are grouped together under carnivorids ,aquatic dangers includes expected predators such as sharks and whales as well as jellyfish, which can be lethal under certain circumstances. Of all the animals documented, from the smallest insects and worms to elephants and whales, the section that made me cringe the most was the brief passage about cockroaches.
This is not a grim and horrifying book, it includes humorous incidents involving the author and observations. This is one of my favorites: "It has been said that if England had been as rife with chiggers as the southern United States is, English Romantic poetry might have been prevented." Having been inside a chigger infested outhouse myself I can appreciate the sentiment.
The book divides animals by type--carnivorids; aquatic dangers; reptiles and birds; insects; arthropods and worms and other mammals. Dogs, cats and bears are grouped together under carnivorids ,aquatic dangers includes expected predators such as sharks and whales as well as jellyfish, which can be lethal under certain circumstances. Of all the animals documented, from the smallest insects and worms to elephants and whales, the section that made me cringe the most was the brief passage about cockroaches.
This is not a grim and horrifying book, it includes humorous incidents involving the author and observations. This is one of my favorites: "It has been said that if England had been as rife with chiggers as the southern United States is, English Romantic poetry might have been prevented." Having been inside a chigger infested outhouse myself I can appreciate the sentiment.
December 27, 2010
What an incredibly disappointing book after the fantastic Red Hourglass, which I gave five stars to. This book is little more than chapter after chapter of descriptions of animals that could attack humans, how they could do so, and how they have done so. It's repetitive and reads like a one dimensional collection of excerpts from encyclopedia entries. Some of the chapters are somewhat interesting, but those are the ones that go deeper and read more like The Red Hourglass--delving into more than just fangs, predatory tactics, and attack anecdotes.
I really can't recommend this book, which saddens me. Even where it is personal--such as when the author outlines his personal history with one of the predators via an anecdote from his youth--it comes across as forced. That said, please don't let this turn you off of Grice as a writer. The Red Hourglass is fantastic. He just somehow lost his way between that book and this one.
I really can't recommend this book, which saddens me. Even where it is personal--such as when the author outlines his personal history with one of the predators via an anecdote from his youth--it comes across as forced. That said, please don't let this turn you off of Grice as a writer. The Red Hourglass is fantastic. He just somehow lost his way between that book and this one.
November 1, 2016
This was a truly fascinating read. I enjoyed it so much that I actually bought it! Grice fills the book with lots of interesting facts and statistics about everything from worms to elephants, ants to sharks. One of the most informative section, in my opinion, was about spiders. Though many have venom, few have fangs that are strong or large enough to pierce human flesh. I could go on and on with things that I learned, but if you are at all interested in nature you should read it yourself. You won't be disappointed.
February 22, 2018
This book could easily be called A Thousand Ways to Die, because each chapter is filled with horrifying stories of animals attacking humans. I do appreciate Grice's insistence that wild animals are not "bad" for attacking humans... nor are they saints that only kill when necessary for survival. To view animals as inherently good or bad is to view them with a biased eye.
All in all, a reliable antidote for anybody guilty of anthropomorphizing animals. Morbidly fascinating, but also slightly terrifying - especially the section on worms.
All in all, a reliable antidote for anybody guilty of anthropomorphizing animals. Morbidly fascinating, but also slightly terrifying - especially the section on worms.
June 13, 2016
some reviewers said he only dealt with creatures the average person would be familiar with. I don't think this is true, as it is a very broad book. If you already know everything you ever wanted to know about poison sponges, then give it a pass. That said, it is not scientific. If you want a quick surevy if the various ways man can come to sorrow at the paws, funs, teeth, spines of his fellow creatures, this is the book for you
August 18, 2019
In The Red Hourglass(1998), Gordon Grice offered seven essay on nature’s predators. The essays were personal, informative, and hard to put down. A little over ten years later he published Deadly Kingdom, A Book of Dangerous Animals. The book is little more than a roll call of animals that will injure if not kill and eat you. After the personal essays of his first book this second one reads like a proposal for an Animal Planet series that has already been made.
August 21, 2018
Possibly not for those with a weak stomach, but as an animal lover I walked away from this book with a whole new (probably much healthier) respect and understanding of the animals with which we share a home. The chapter on bugs and worms, however, made me want to scrub down my home and myself and never go outside again... thankfully I got over that impulse quickly.
April 16, 2012
Oh, I loved it! I lingered...
July 7, 2013
I read this book on the recommendation of David Sedaris.
July 19, 2015
fun, but very little information one isn't probably already aware of.
March 28, 2018
Lots of stories about animals eating, attacking, killing, maiming, infecting people. A gross, fascinating, can't look away even though I want to kind of book.
Read
September 10, 2024DNF; page 73
Very interesting and well written, however I am choosing to live in ignorant bliss of the extent of how awful wild animals can be - I believe a healthy amount of respect and caution for nature will serve me well enough until I die (hopefully not of animal attack).
"Letting your dog roam free was a major attraction of country life; your dog's freedom represented your own."
"The most serious attacks tend to involve children (who compromise half the victims of medically significant bites) and old people. These victims are, of course, less able to defend themselves once an attack is launched, but that's only part of the reason why they are disproportionately victimized. The main reason lies in the social structure of wolf packs [...]a low-ranking wolf can improve his standing by outfighting or cowing a higher-ranking one [...] a domesticated dog seems to see itself as a low-ranking member of human society. Most dogs settle happily into their subordinate roles, once those roles are made clear to them [...] fifty percent of dog bites to children are on the face. It is the eyes that provoke them; a direct gaze is a claim of social superiority, and the dog may challenge that claim from the weakest member of a human pack."
"People want to touch nature, whatever that may mean [...] a peculiar fallacy accompanies this urge to touch the wild: people feel, somehow, that nature will not hurt them because they are themselves approaching it with a kindred feeling."
"The urban coyote is dangerous because it's become habituated: it meets the scent and sight of people often without dire consequences. Experts note that killing these bold coyotes probably wouldn't help. It would merely open their territories for different coyotes to move in. What would help, ironically, is shooting at them and missing often. Canids pass their knowledge to their young. If we kill a few but leave most of them alive to teach their offspring we're dangerous, then humans, pets, and coyotes could all occupy the same territory more amicably."
"Because of our close relationship, dogs share more diseases with us than most animals do. They play a part in the transmission of diseases as diverse as plague and anthrax, and they spread such parasites as fleas, mites, and worms. But rabies is the greatest danger canids pose. They are the major reservoir of the disease worldwide."
"The term 'rogue lion' with its implication of biological abnormality, has been in use for more than a century, and some writers have compared human-eating lions to serial killers. This interpretation doesn't derive from science or even from observation. It comes from a bias about our role in the scheme of things. That bias goes back ultimately to religious texts and teachings. The version I grew up with has Adam being given dominion over birds and beasts, fish and creeping thigs. Teachings like this put human beings at the top of a scale of value, so any information that moves us lower must be explained as abnormal."
"The lions varied their point of attack, rarely taking prey from the same camp twice in a row and refusing to revisit previous kills when Patterson and others sat in wait for them with guns. They showed considerable intelligence, anticipating the moves of the hunters and taking advantage of the routines of the humans."
"The lions in Tsavo were more likely than others to prey on humans because the ground there was covered in low bushes, which allowed the lions to lie in ambush. That's their favorite way to hunt people. The brush hasn't always been there. Grazing elephants used to leave little cover for lions. The elephants died off, decimated buy ivory hunters and by the viral disease rinderpest. People accidentally catalyzed the epidemic spread of rinderpest by establishing vast herds of livestock in Africa, amplifying the usual pattern of disease transmission. By killing the elephants (both directly and indirectly), people contributed to the lion attacks."
Very interesting and well written, however I am choosing to live in ignorant bliss of the extent of how awful wild animals can be - I believe a healthy amount of respect and caution for nature will serve me well enough until I die (hopefully not of animal attack).
"Letting your dog roam free was a major attraction of country life; your dog's freedom represented your own."
"The most serious attacks tend to involve children (who compromise half the victims of medically significant bites) and old people. These victims are, of course, less able to defend themselves once an attack is launched, but that's only part of the reason why they are disproportionately victimized. The main reason lies in the social structure of wolf packs [...]a low-ranking wolf can improve his standing by outfighting or cowing a higher-ranking one [...] a domesticated dog seems to see itself as a low-ranking member of human society. Most dogs settle happily into their subordinate roles, once those roles are made clear to them [...] fifty percent of dog bites to children are on the face. It is the eyes that provoke them; a direct gaze is a claim of social superiority, and the dog may challenge that claim from the weakest member of a human pack."
"People want to touch nature, whatever that may mean [...] a peculiar fallacy accompanies this urge to touch the wild: people feel, somehow, that nature will not hurt them because they are themselves approaching it with a kindred feeling."
"The urban coyote is dangerous because it's become habituated: it meets the scent and sight of people often without dire consequences. Experts note that killing these bold coyotes probably wouldn't help. It would merely open their territories for different coyotes to move in. What would help, ironically, is shooting at them and missing often. Canids pass their knowledge to their young. If we kill a few but leave most of them alive to teach their offspring we're dangerous, then humans, pets, and coyotes could all occupy the same territory more amicably."
"Because of our close relationship, dogs share more diseases with us than most animals do. They play a part in the transmission of diseases as diverse as plague and anthrax, and they spread such parasites as fleas, mites, and worms. But rabies is the greatest danger canids pose. They are the major reservoir of the disease worldwide."
"The term 'rogue lion' with its implication of biological abnormality, has been in use for more than a century, and some writers have compared human-eating lions to serial killers. This interpretation doesn't derive from science or even from observation. It comes from a bias about our role in the scheme of things. That bias goes back ultimately to religious texts and teachings. The version I grew up with has Adam being given dominion over birds and beasts, fish and creeping thigs. Teachings like this put human beings at the top of a scale of value, so any information that moves us lower must be explained as abnormal."
"The lions varied their point of attack, rarely taking prey from the same camp twice in a row and refusing to revisit previous kills when Patterson and others sat in wait for them with guns. They showed considerable intelligence, anticipating the moves of the hunters and taking advantage of the routines of the humans."
"The lions in Tsavo were more likely than others to prey on humans because the ground there was covered in low bushes, which allowed the lions to lie in ambush. That's their favorite way to hunt people. The brush hasn't always been there. Grazing elephants used to leave little cover for lions. The elephants died off, decimated buy ivory hunters and by the viral disease rinderpest. People accidentally catalyzed the epidemic spread of rinderpest by establishing vast herds of livestock in Africa, amplifying the usual pattern of disease transmission. By killing the elephants (both directly and indirectly), people contributed to the lion attacks."
May 30, 2017
I feel like the subtitle on this should be changed to: A Primer for How to Be Killed By An Animal That Normally Wants Nothing to Do With You. (Catchy, right? I'm sure I'll be getting a call to join the publisher's creative team any minute now.)
I'd say easily 70% of the stories in this book involve some asshole human poking, enticing, teasing, getting too close to, baiting, hunting, or otherwise annoying an animal and then being absolutely shocked when that animal decides to pull of their arm or eat their face. Spoiler alert on the moral: DO NOT FEED OR TEASE THE ANIMALS. Sheesh.
Anyway, although I enjoyed this book, I have to go with three stars because while the research is apparent the accuracy suffers in the efforts to create a conversational (vs. "academic") read.
In addition to the occasional story that Grice reports being unable to verify as truth, he often gives us numbers without any parameters. For example: "In a recent year, homicide took 520,000 lives..." A recent year? You can't actually tell us the year? Is this a worldwide number or is it just in the US? Other times numbers aren't accompanied by time frames at all - could be last month alone, could be since the dawn of time. The "Further Reading" section in the back acts as a combination of a selected bibliography and author notes but doesn't bother to answer these statistics questions either.
There is a lot to cover here and obviously not every animal can be covered in detail so there is some disappointment when the animal you want to hear about is glossed over (I could have used way more birds and cephalopods.) Some sections are stronger than others and while I don't mind the insertion of Grice's personal experience there were a couple occasions where it felt unnecessary to the topic although I would say that the majority of his transitions are really good.
This isn't the book to read if you are looking for specifics but it is a pretty enlightening book to read if you want a general overview of lots of really terrible ways to get stung or bitten. Or dismembered. Or eaten.
I'd say easily 70% of the stories in this book involve some asshole human poking, enticing, teasing, getting too close to, baiting, hunting, or otherwise annoying an animal and then being absolutely shocked when that animal decides to pull of their arm or eat their face. Spoiler alert on the moral: DO NOT FEED OR TEASE THE ANIMALS. Sheesh.
Anyway, although I enjoyed this book, I have to go with three stars because while the research is apparent the accuracy suffers in the efforts to create a conversational (vs. "academic") read.
In addition to the occasional story that Grice reports being unable to verify as truth, he often gives us numbers without any parameters. For example: "In a recent year, homicide took 520,000 lives..." A recent year? You can't actually tell us the year? Is this a worldwide number or is it just in the US? Other times numbers aren't accompanied by time frames at all - could be last month alone, could be since the dawn of time. The "Further Reading" section in the back acts as a combination of a selected bibliography and author notes but doesn't bother to answer these statistics questions either.
There is a lot to cover here and obviously not every animal can be covered in detail so there is some disappointment when the animal you want to hear about is glossed over (I could have used way more birds and cephalopods.) Some sections are stronger than others and while I don't mind the insertion of Grice's personal experience there were a couple occasions where it felt unnecessary to the topic although I would say that the majority of his transitions are really good.
This isn't the book to read if you are looking for specifics but it is a pretty enlightening book to read if you want a general overview of lots of really terrible ways to get stung or bitten. Or dismembered. Or eaten.
March 30, 2022
This book is ok. It’s basically a listed breakdown by species group of what has attacked people throughout history. I will say I spent a good portion of the book going “but what’s the POINT of the book?” It seems to be to just list what animals have hurt people. Some accounts are longer and more story form. Some are literally one sentence. I will say I learned about some new species of animals (coconut crabs….what?!) and it got a few laughs out of me (I would still like to know what zookeepers cross exhibits on the backs of their alligators?!?!). I could have done without the authors personal account of their childhood or their child’s encounter with nature, but that’s a personal choice. You can tell through the narrative which group the author feels is misunderstood (and demonized) and which group the author is personally not a fan of. Overall not mad I read the book, but overall my feelings toward it is baffled.
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