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Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
by Robert SullivanRats appear in countless fictional books - giant
rats, mutated rats, plague rats - they're the stuff of
nightmares. However, to write a non-fiction book
about common or garden urban rats and make it interesting is
a challenge, but one that Robert Sullivan is more than up
to. Sullivan spent hundreds of hours in a New York
alley observing rats - or more specifically rattus novegicus
(the brown rat), which arrived in North America around the
time of the Revolutionary War and quickly infested virtually
all densely inhabited areas of the continent.
I could fill pages with anecdotes from this book but instead
I encourage you to go and read the very extensive excerpt at
BookBrowse for yourself. The excerpt is unique to
BookBrowse and I guarantee you'll come away with lots of
wonderful facts to send shivers down your friends' spines
for years to come!
Selected Reviews:
'...an immensely lively, enjoyable, learned, witty and, yes, appealing
book on these damnable creatures.' -- The Washington
Post
'.. a must pickup for every city dweller, even if you'll feel like you
need to wash your hands when you put it down.' --
Publishers Weekly.
This review first ran in the April 6, 2005 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.
If you liked Rats, try these:
An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals "pests" and others not - from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons - and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural world.
The honey bee is a willing conscript, a working wonder, an unseen and crucial link in America's agricultural industry. But never before has its survival been so unclear - and the future of our food supply so acutely challenged.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
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