Fuzz

I love how Mary Roach travels the world finding out the history of unusual things – whether sex research, deployed soldiers, or what happens to corpses. In Fuzz, she chronicles the hassles of people who have to deal with dangerous animals…often in encounters that are ridiculous, deadly, or both.

Bears that roam onto median strips dotted with crabapple trees, elephants that squash people (or worse, de-limb them like a tree), and dumb ocean birds that are unafraid to nest at airports are all unique hazards, and Mary Roach writes with humor about all of them.

As a video game… show more.

“Like a deer in the headlights,” we say about someone who freezes in the face of impending doom. Why is that? Why don’t deer jump out of the way when they see us coming in our speeding metal machines? Mary Roach will tell you.

She is one of the best and funniest science writers around, and her most recent book, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, is about the often brutal interface where human culture meets wildlife, whether it’s deer in the road or geese on the golf course. In other words, this is a book about how the… show more.

After hearing Mary Roach describe research for this book during an NPR interview, I couldn’t wait to hear more of her bizarre, funny, sometimes unbelievable stories about animals “breaking the law.”

These are human laws, of course, that animals are heedless of and not bound by; however, human-animal conflicts are on the rise, and we must be aware of how to lessen negative interactions as we continue to move into territory where animals previously roamed freely. Humans are more often the problem in these encounters, but we can provide solutions too.

A must-read for all who love wildlife and spend… show more.

National parks are chock full of human-wildlife interactions, whether you like it or not.

Mary Roach gives her readers an insightful invitation to think about these interactions in a fresh way. The tone is fun and the science is accessible—as are the scientists. Roach has a wonderful way of coloring in the people she talks to just as much as the science she covers.

As women science writers, both of us have looked up to Roach ever since her first book, Stiff, came out in 2003.

I mean, how could I not recommend a Mary Roach book about animals? Fuzz breaks down all the things animals do that, if humans did them, would be cause for a lot of jail time. Stealing, breaking and entering, poisoning, pooping in public, even murder. But what do you do when the perp is a bear, a bird, or…a bean? This is essential reading to make you the life of any fun cocktail party, and I hope that I can be as funny as Roach when I grow up. 

Mary Roach has a sharp wit and the talent to make non-fiction read like fiction and Fuzz was no exception. Roach takes the reader on a journey to better understand human/wildlife conflict by travelling around the world, introducing the reader to specialists managing bears digging in garbage and elephants eating crops. Most importantly, Roach explains what steps can be taken to help humans live more amicably alongside our animal neighbors.

Mary Roach is one of my favorite nonfiction writers. Funny, sarcastic, relentless: She asks the questions no one else thinks of, like why does the Pope ride in a Ford Focus? And how many langurs were in President Trump’s security detail when he visited the Taj Mahal (in India)? In Fuzz, she asks: How can we learn to live with wild animals when they can be such a pain in the ass? This book is really about human-animal coexistence, not bioengineering (though she does discuss gene drives—scary!). But Roach is so jaunty, you feel like, somehow, we’ll figure it… show more.