Richard E. Mallery

I picked this book up from my local library in hopes of learning more about our native squirrel population. I don't really know a great deal about the different species of squirrel, their habits, how to distinguish one from the other, etc. and I was really eager to learn. Instead of getting a decent book about squirrels, I got a long treatise about how people are waging war against squirrels over the terrain of their bird-feeder, why it's fruitless, and a lot of tongue in cheek humor. This wasn't bad per se, it just wasn't what I was expecting and after about two chapters the chuckles turned more into cringes for me.

The problem with the book isn't its approach, exactly, or its writing. The problem lies mainly with the editing. Too much of the books contents are repeated not only chapter to chapter but sometimes page to page. Facts are given over and over as if it's something new or a new joke when you just read it. It's a ridiculously poor editing job, and I'm surprised that this book made it out there with so many repetitious statements and the like. The book could have been about a third of the length without the repeated material and been a far smoother, more amusing read.

I wanted to like this book, truly, and I did learn a decent amount from it. It just wasn't what I was looking for and was too repetitive to prove truly amusing and keep its charm.… (más)

This book is absolutely packed with information about squirrels. Mostly it talks about the hundreds of ways in which people try to stop squirrels from raiding bird feeders (and pointing out why they all fail) but there's also info on squirrels in history, hilarious accidents squirrels have caused, anecdotes about people who become obsessed with chasing off squirrels, facts about different kinds of squirrels, instructions on how to feed squirrels and a plethora of jokes featuring squirrels. If you're interested in squirrels at all, and want some laughs, this is a nice little book.

From the Dog Ear Diary… (más)