What do you think?
Rate this book
The Hopes of Snakes: And Other Tales from the Urban Landscape
In The Hopes of Snakes , Lisa Couturier celebrates the stories of forgotten, overlooked animals who have adapted nobly to city and suburban life in the Northeast. With sharp perception and deep humanity, she has found what is so remarkable in the nature we see most often and illuminated it like no one before her. The Hopes of Snakes is an eloquent and powerful debut by one of the best new writers exploring nature in the humanized landscape.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 2005
2 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 4, 2018
Wow. I met this author in 2005 and her speech alone convinced me to by her book. I was a different person then as is the author. This books has moved with me many, many times and I've kept it because I really wanted to read the title essay. What DO snakes hope for. But I don't think she answers that question. I also grew weary of her quoting from philosophers, religious figures, poets, etc. I wanted to say, "Yes, but what do YOU think?" And there is definitely an undercurrent in these essays about family and faith that I think she deliberately avoided, which made me, as a reader, feel that she wasn't willing to be vulnerable and that kept reader and author at a distance from one another.
October 4, 2025
Couturier's essays are written with such care and interest in the natural world and animals, they're a sort of calming meditation on how we might hope to interact with and learn from nature, at our best. Whether she's writing of coyotes, snakes, or birds--many of the essays, it's worth noting, are bird-focused--her precise language and rhythms make for a calm and entrancing meditation on her experiences with animals and with nature. There are some moments which I wish would have gotten more follow-up and not become forgotten threads, but on the whole, I very much enjoyed this little book, and I'd certainly recommend it to other animal-lovers, particularly those who live on the borders between cities and nature and/or don't get to spend as much time in nature as they might like.
Recommended.
Recommended.
August 15, 2019
The ideas behind these are more interesting than their execution.
Couturier wants to make the case that urban areas are natural, too--though not necessarily wild--which is a perspective with which I am in agreement. I really wanted her to develop her argument. Unfortunately, she sometimes gets bogged down in the conventions of narrative essays--"I went here, with this person, s/he looked like this and the environment looked like that"--and also because they too often took turns toward the personal, less about nature and more about her life. There's nothing wrong with such essays--nature has long been used as a mirror for personal struggles--but it's just not what I was after, nor did it seem to serve her thesis.
Couturier wants to make the case that urban areas are natural, too--though not necessarily wild--which is a perspective with which I am in agreement. I really wanted her to develop her argument. Unfortunately, she sometimes gets bogged down in the conventions of narrative essays--"I went here, with this person, s/he looked like this and the environment looked like that"--and also because they too often took turns toward the personal, less about nature and more about her life. There's nothing wrong with such essays--nature has long been used as a mirror for personal struggles--but it's just not what I was after, nor did it seem to serve her thesis.
August 12, 2020
One after another, these essays about creatures in urban and suburban landscapes, bring delightful discoveries and poignant reflections. From Manhattan to Washington's suburban fringe in Maryland and beyond, we meet with creatures often ignored, forgotten, shunned, or exterminated. On the journey, we meet again and again with the author, and perhaps with ourselves.
As with any essay collection, it has its ups and downs. (Vultures at soaring heights, peregrine falcons swooping down to stun and kill, rats and cockroaches creeping through buildings' innards.) All in all, it's a great read.
As with any essay collection, it has its ups and downs. (Vultures at soaring heights, peregrine falcons swooping down to stun and kill, rats and cockroaches creeping through buildings' innards.) All in all, it's a great read.
February 9, 2020
What a lovely book! Despite its title, which might put off readers because of their "fears" of snakes, this book brings you into contact with all sorts of nature and our role in maintaining our connection to it and life. Listening to what is being said by what we would think have no "words or thoughts" when in reality life is our connection to all living things animate and inanimate.
It is well written, has great prose and brings one senses to the landscape of our beings.
It is well written, has great prose and brings one senses to the landscape of our beings.
May 23, 2007
This one is very cool. I;ve always been one to watch for the little hidden creatures with whom we share the urban landscape, and this book shows that I'm not alone. The author has more training in zoology than I'll ever have, and the writing often borders on the poetic.
February 10, 2025
An excellent read for those of us who try, and try hard, to find the balance of city life with the wilds of nature. The ability to see nature in an alley, or a deserted street, or park at night, is not taken for granted by the author, nor by me. This book of essays is beautifully written!
October 5, 2009
(review is incomplete)
The author evidently aspires to be a sort of urban Thoreau, Muir or Leopold. She has a good eye for detail and a deep appreciation for animals and their behaviors - hence the book's title. I'm familiar with the heavily populated landscapes she describes in the Eastern Seaboard, as well as her habit of looking for wildlife in the nooks and crannies between buildings - hawks watching the highway, frogsong announcing springtime, etc. But after only a couple of chapters I am tiring of her pretentious prose.
The author evidently aspires to be a sort of urban Thoreau, Muir or Leopold. She has a good eye for detail and a deep appreciation for animals and their behaviors - hence the book's title. I'm familiar with the heavily populated landscapes she describes in the Eastern Seaboard, as well as her habit of looking for wildlife in the nooks and crannies between buildings - hawks watching the highway, frogsong announcing springtime, etc. But after only a couple of chapters I am tiring of her pretentious prose.
March 9, 2015
My ambivalence towards this book was definitely of my own making as I went into thinking it would be fiction. The disappointment that lingered once I realized it was actually a quasi-biography, quasi-natural history tainted the rest of the reading. However, Courturier is a good writer and obviously passionate about urban nature, so I did learn something from this text and was somewhat drawn in due to her enthusiasm. In particular, I was additionally appreciative of her insights since I live in DC.
August 27, 2007
Essays on urban wildlife in New York and Washington DC. This was an unexpected find; I happened to be at Politics and Prose in DC when the author was reading excerpts. I liked the way she reflected on her life in relation to the creatures around her, in the tradition of Emerson and Thoreau. I have spent many hours watching squirrels in Lafayette Park and birds in my backyard, and Couturier's meditative prose has enriched those hours for me.
October 15, 2008
A collection of short essays built around particular fauna that co-habit our urban/suburban landscapes. The author weaves some basic facts on the the behavioral ecology of each species type with her emotions and opinions from direct encounters.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews