Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Bill Schutt's "Dark Banquet"


This was a fun romp through some biology of blood suckers: bats, leeches, ticks, bedbugs, finches, and candiru. I like the author's style. He enjoys throwing in asides and personal commentary to lighten up the writing.

Did I learn a lot of science? No, not really. Richard Feynman found biology distasteful because it was like stamp collecting, i.e. too many facts and not enough theories. This book is full of stories, but it doesn't make contact with much real science. So you don't learn a lot of real science, but you do get a wonderful acquaintance with lots of interesting science "facts". Things to amaze your friends with.

The book is a quick read. Nothing too demanding. Lots of curious facts. Lots of solid "human interest" stories to make it more palatable to those who don't want too much fact and need more human interest to keep their attention up. I give it a big two thumbs up.

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