Items related to The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators
Nature's most fearsome predators are truly nightmarish creatures. Gordon Grice shows that the reality of these predators' behaviour is in fact far worse than anything we might imagine. With an unnerving sense of delight, Grice explores the inner lives of nature's least loved.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
The Red Hourglass creeps and crawls with seven essays that follow the author's fascination with spiders, insects, snakes--even wild pigs. Its title, suggesting the irony of lethal beauty, provides a hint of the miraculous nature writing contained within; Grice transforms even the most horrific events of the natural world into poetry. Here's a pet praying mantis during feeding time: "The moth flapped its wings into a buzzing blur every few seconds while the mantid unhurriedly ate it, starting from the head. The pruning-shear mouth parts worked away, biting out chunks of moth and lapping the juices. The moth's scales, which had broken into particles of dust when they smeared my hand, looked like little brown feathers when they were whole, and they drifted down in a steady snow." The writing is quirky, lyrical, and intensely personal. Grice is not just an observer of nature; he gleefully participates in the strange and wonderful lives of mostly small, predatory animals, and most readers will simultaneously squirm and delight in his unusual, ground-level perspective. Then again, some readers may be reduced to quivering terror. If you suffer from a fear of the little beasts roaming the earth, perhaps Grice's exploration of the predator-prey relationship might prove too frightening and abhorrent. --Amazon.com
Review:
"Gordon Grice is one hell of a writer. I was originally disturbed by some of the killing he depicts, but his descriptions are so compelling that I had to read on. I'm glad I did."
--Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love "The Red Hourglass marks the debut of a fresh, strange, and wonderful new voice in American nature writing."
--Michael Pollan, author of A Place of My Own and Second Nature From the Hardcover edition.
--Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love "The Red Hourglass marks the debut of a fresh, strange, and wonderful new voice in American nature writing."
--Michael Pollan, author of A Place of My Own and Second Nature From the Hardcover edition.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherAllen Lane
- Publication date1998
- ISBN 10 071399293X
- ISBN 13 9780713992939
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages272
- Rating
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