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BookBrowse Reviews Rats by Robert Sullivan

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Rats by Robert Sullivan

Rats

Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants

by Robert Sullivan
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • First Published:
  • Apr 1, 2004, 256 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2005, 256 pages
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About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


'A must pickup for every city dweller'. Current Affairs/Environment
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Rats 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.

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Read-Alikes

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If you liked Rats, try these:

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    Pests

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    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.

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    The Beekeeper's Lament

    by Hannah Nordhaus

    Published 2011

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    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.

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    The Big Necessity

    by Rose George

    Published 2009

    About This book

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    An utterly original exploration of the world of human waste that will surprise, outrage—and entertain

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