Take at look at what the first bookstore customer is reading in this CBS News story on how indy bookstores are booming.
The German magazine, Bild der Wissenschaft – Picture of Science – has chosen the German translation of The Soul of an Octopus — Rendezvous mit einem Oktopus – as the best non-fiction of 2018 in their entertainment category.
Another Octo Convert. K. D. Miller is a Canadian writer who has won a following with her short story collections, including All Saints and Late Breaking. Recently Miller was interviewed about her favorite books. What book are you an “evangelist” for? she was asked. Miller replied, “The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery. I couldn’t believe I was reading a whole book about cephalopods. Montgomery is a wonderful nature writer. She was one of the models for a character in my latest book – a woman who writes about spiders, bats and other things most people want nothing to do with. The Soul of an Octopus is proof that you can write about anything, anything at all, and, provided you do it with sufficient authority and skill, you’ll have people turning the pages.”
Inky’s Amazing Escape is Amazon’s pick for the best children’s nonfiction book of 2018.
Octo Wine. Two bottles of very appropriately labeled wine from a celebratory dinner at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, where Sy had the privilege of speaking. “Here’s to teachers, students, mollusks and raptors: Cheers!,” says Sy.
While in Arksansas to talk to students at Hendrix College, Sy enjoyed her visit to Raptor Rehab of Central Arkansas.
How to Be a Good Creature starts its second month on the New York Times Monthly Science Bestseller list.
Brain Pickings. Each week Maria Popova’s hundreds of thousands of readers wait for her thoughtful dispatches on art, science, philosophy, and other subjects. Last Sunday the subject of Brain Pickings was emus, pigs, tarantulas, Border Collies, and some of the other animals that grace Sy’s latest book, How to Be a Good Creature. Maria gets to the essence of the book. Sy, she writes, is “one of the most poetic science writers of our time.”