Sy received a royal welcome April 20 to Wendover School in Greensburgh, Pa. The 6th, 7th and 8th graders made more than 200 posters inspired by her work and travels, which are displayed throughout the school. Leading up to the visit, students watched videos, read interviews, and studied Sy’s books and the animals who inspired them. Thanks to the incredible staff at the school, especially librarian Beth McGuire students see authors as awesome as rock stars!

Good Creatures All. Sy is delighted to be on the front page of today’s Wall St. Journal in the company of many other fine books about animals: “My Beloved Octopus: Animal Memoirs Move Way Beyond Cats and Dogs.”

And the lead of the story:

In her book How to Be a Good Creature, Sy Montgomery gains rare insight into her late mother after a wild ermine rips the head off one of the author’s chickens.

“She was, in her way, as fierce as that ermine,” Ms. Montgomery writes in her memoir about lessons she has learned from 13 different animals. After seeing the voracious creature, she writes, her heart “flooded with the balm of forgiveness” for her mother.

Sy enjoyed her visit to Newport, Oregon, where she was met by 100 octo-devotees at the Newport Public library and 300 fans at the Eugene Public Library. Sy was visiting because of the good work of Newport Reads! during which the entire community is invited to read and discuss one book, in this case a certain book about octopuses. The above display was created by Linda Anable from facts and materials provided by Lance Beck and Evonne Mochon-Collura. And below, Sy visits with Cleo at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Thank you all for the great visit.

Coming in September: How to be a Good Creature. In her new book Sy tells us about the personalities and quirks of 13 animals—her friends—who have profoundly affected her.

“What have animals taught me about life?” Sy asks in the book’s introduction.

Her answer: “How to be a good creature.”

“All the animals I’ve known—from the first bug I must have spied as an infant, to the moon bears I met in Southeast Asia, to the spotted hyenas I got to know in Kenya—have been good creatures. Each individual is a marvel and perfect in his or her own way. Just being with any animal is edifying, for each has a knowing that surpasses human understanding….

“Knowing someone who belongs to another species can enlarge your soul in surprising ways. In these pages you’ll meet animals who changed my life by the briefest of meetings. You’ll meet others who become members of my family. Some are dogs who shared our home. One’s a pig who lived in our barn. Three are huge flightless birds, two are tree kangaroos, and there’s also a spider, a weasel, and an octopus.

“I am still learning how to be a good creature. I try earnestly, but, perhaps like you, too, I often fail. But I am having a great life trying—a life exploring this sweet green world, and returning to a home where I am blessed with a multispecies family offering me comfort and joy beyond my wildest dreams.”

Kangaroo Training. The Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program features Sy’s Quest for the Tree Kangaroo in its excellent Junior Ranger Training program, here in the Papua New Guinea mountain village of Westkokop. Photo by Danny Sama.

Seen at Out of the Blue, a gift shop on Big Pine Key in Florida. Thanks to Elizabeth Hunter Lavallee for taking on the hard work of winter reconnaissance in Florida.

The John Burroughs Association has awarded the 2018 Riverby Award to Amazon Adventure. “The Riverby Award recognizes exceptional nonfiction natural history books for young readers. The books selected present perceptive and artistic accounts of direct experiences in nature and invite young readers to explore the natural world for themselves.” Amazon Adventure is one of five books honored with the Riverby Award in 2018.

Sy enjoyed talking about Tamed & Untamed on the Mongabay podcast. Mongabay brings its listeners “news and inspiration from nature’s frontline.” You can hear Sy here or find Mongabay on Spotify.

Octo keeps swimming. The Soul of an Octopus is number 3 on the list of nonfiction bestsellers in the Bay Area.

We’re late on this. Last year the Berlin Medical History Museum presented an exhibit called: The Soul is an Octopus: Ancient Ideas of Life and the Body.

The exhibit examined the “ancient conceptions of the soul and its interaction with the human body. In Graeco-Roman thought the soul was not only the basis of an individual person’s thinking, feeling or moral character. It was also a biological principle that gave life and structure to the body…

The exhibit asked “three important questions that were central to classical philosophers and physicians alike:

• What is the ruling part of the soul?
• Where does it reside?
• How does it communicate with the body?

“In short what did it mean “to be ‘ensouled’ in ancient times.”

Coming in February to bookstores in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novogorod, Omsk, Kazan, and elsewhere, the Russian edition of The Soul of an Octopus.

“Bearing Arms: The Amazing World of the Octopus.” Sy enjoyed talking about octopuses on the NPR show 1A. She was on with Danna Staaf, author of Squid Empire, and Kelley Voss, a doctoral student at the University of California at Santa Cruz’s Mehta Lab in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology. (1A is produced by WAMU 88.5 and is distributed by NPR.) Listen here.

Octo on the list. The end of the year is the time for reading lists. Former Congressman Steve Israel (D-N.Y. 2001 to 2017) asked his old colleagues in the House to tell him about books that they read this year for “insight, knowledge and, yes, escape.” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) enjoyed reading The Soul of an Octopus because it’s “a fun and fascinating diversion from the political stuff I usually read. It’s about a biologist’s relationship and attachment to octopuses. Amazing animals, octopuses posses powers of thinking and feeling far beyond anything I knew.”

Check out Freya on the move. “Freya,” the octopus you can now see at the New England Aquarium “seems to have strong opinions about some things. For example, she’ll grab the magnetic glass cleaner from her side of the glass when she decides it is not time to clean the glass. Her personality definitely shines through the glass,” say the folks at the aquarium. They’d love it if you’d come “meet this spunky new addition to the Olympic Coast exhibit.”

When Sy was in New York recently talking at the 92nd St. Y with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Barbra J. King, she was treated to a tour of The Butterfly Conservatory at the Museum of Natural History. Reader and museum volunteer Sandya Satia was a gracious guide. In the photo Sy enjoys a visit from a Blue Morpho and a Magnificent Owl.

Tamed and Untamed is the number one bestselling paperback at the Concord Bookshop in Concord, Massachusetts.

Sy was delighted to be on Brendan O’Meara’s Creative Nonfiction podcast. She told Brendan: “I have never picked the safe option and I have never regretted choosing what I’ve chosen ever.” After the show Brendan said, “Frankly, I came away from this conversation feeling good, just good, and the people who make you feel that way are the people you want to surround yourself with. I know I ended that sentence with a preposition, but whatever.”

Rendezvous mit einem Oktopus is popular in Germany. The German translation has just gone back for its fifth printing.

Spanish Octo on the way. Seix Barral, an imprint of Planeta, will be bringing a translation of The Soul of an Octopus to Spain.

The Good Good Pig paperback edition is now in its 17th printing.

Tamed and Untamed has crossed the pond. The Daily Mail in London has named Tamed and Untamed as one of the Best Reads of the Year, calling it “a charming collection of short, sometimes funny and occasionally eccentric essays.”

Un Animal Fantastique. The cover for French edition of The Soul of an Octopus is here. The “livre fantastique” will be published in April 2018.

Love of spiders. The fourth graders in Megan Popp’s and Christine Wittig’s class at PS/MS 200 in Flushing, Queens enjoyed The Tarantula Scientist. The class wrote Sy beautiful letters, and they are now pen pals with Sy. One student, Rochelle, wrote: “I really love your book and before I read it I hated spiders…Sam Marshall was a big help and taught me to learn about how important spiders are.”

Vulture Days. This is the view from the condor pen on a recent morning at the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in California. Sy is researching a new book about the critically endangered California Condor. Estelle Sandhaus took this photo through binoculars. Sandhaus is the Director of Conservation and Research at the Santa Barbara Zoo. Sy is also working with photographer Tia Strombeck as they create a new entry in Scientists in the Field series.

And here Sy is holding Condor 771, a “sub-adult” female, to be exact. She’s getting her health and telemetry check, as does every precious California alive on Earth, thanks to cooperation between the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Santa Barbara Zoo, and others.

Sy had a great visit with the students at the Moharimet School in Madbury, New Hampshire. Mrs. Schmitt’s third grade class sent Sy home with a pile of drawings of the animals they love. A few of them are here.

Tamed and Untamed is a bestseller. For the week ending October 29, 2017, Tamed and Untamed is number 6 on the trade paperback nonfiction list of the New England Independent Booksellers Association’s IndieBound Bestsellers.

Listen to Sy and Liz talk critters on KGNU, an independent community radio station in the Boulder-Denver metro area.

The New Statesman magazine asks: “Have we underestimated the octopus? Far from a childhood memory from a Disney film, or something tasty on your plate in a seafood restaurant, the wriggling cephalopod is suddenly in the news. One might be forgiven for thinking some mollusc mastermind was running a very successful PR campaign. But it’s not as if the animals have just started doing all this stuff – they’ve been around for 300 million years. It’s just that we’ve taken a long time to realise it.” Read more here.

Artist Hannah Ellingwood recently went to the New England Aquarium with Sy (the writer) to meet Sy the Octopus. Hannah says: “Putting my hand into the water and having Sy reach out to explore me with her suckers was such an experience and I was excited to create my first octopus cut out inspired by her! Much thanks to Sy Montgomery for introducing me to Sy the octo!” See more of Hannah’s cut-out art on Instagram.

Liz and Sy thank the Norwich Bookstore for having them come by to read. The turn-out far exceeded the small store, so everyone gathered in a nearby church.

Tiny Fish, Big Honor. Amazon Adventure: How Tiny Fish are Saving the World’s Largest Rainforest is a Junior Library Guild Selection for Fall 2017.

Liz and Sy talk about their friendship in The Valley News: “She was what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Montgomery said this week, during a telephone conversation from her farm in Hancock, N.H. “From the first time we met, the thing that we shared was an understanding that animals can think and feel and know. That was — and something not everyone could agree upon — that all animals were a ‘who,’ not a ‘that.’ A ‘he’ or a ‘she,’ not an ‘it.’ ”

Sy talks about what most people don’t know about animal intelligence for Care2, “the world’s largest social network for good… with over 40 million standing together, starting petitions and sharing stories that inspire action.” And Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Sy talk about “anthrophobia” and our shared lives with animals on NHPR’s Word of Mouth.

The Soul of a Naturalist. “Montgomery has brought us closer to the consciousnesses of the animals with whom we share our world,” says literary magazine Tin House. “The result is a body of writing that is as rigorous in its thinking as it is enchanting, and that our planet in environmental crisis is lucky to have. It was an honor to speak with one of our greatest naturalists—and one who takes dance lessons with her dog, to boot.” Sy had a lovely time talking with associate editor Emma Komlos-Hrobsky. Read the Tin House interview.

Sy and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas talked with Steve Curwood, the host of Living on Earth about their new book, Tamed & Untamed. As Sy told Steve: “What we’re saying in this book and every single essay, whether it’s about hyraxes – these little groundhog-sized relatives of elephants who live in Africa – or an octopus at the New England Aquarium or the dog at your feet, these lives are so fascinating, so intricate, so mysterious, so thrilling, and so worthy of our respect and affection and awe.” Listen to the interview.

Octopus is the Solution. The New York Times Acrostic Solution for Sunday, October 1, 2017 was based on this: “(SY) MONTGOMERY, (THE) SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS — Here is an animal with venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can… stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange.”

Three scientists starring in three of Sy’s Scientists in the Field titles have been nominated for the Indianapolis Prize, one of the most prestigious honors in conservation. Scott Dowd, featured in Sy’s latest kids book, Amazon Adventure; Lisa Dabek, star of Quest for the Tree Kangaroo, and Laurie Marker, subject of Chasing Cheetahs, all made the cut to be considered for the prize honoring the most successful conservationist in the world. Congratulations to these wonderful friends on this recognition for their crucial work saving animals.

Rendezvous mit einem Oktopus. The Soul of an Octopus is a bestseller in Germany. It debuted this week at #12 on the Spiegel bestseller list. Extrem schlau, as the book’s subtitle says, Extremely smart.

Octo Returns. The Soul of the Octopus has bobbed up at number 9 on The Boston Globe’s nonfiction paperback best seller list, leaving us to ask: Is this good for the Sox?

Jannine Pizarro and daughters Madeline, 5 and Natalie, 4 brought their octo-paintings to Sy’s talk and signing at Stoddard, NH’s Town Hall on August 4. Their treasured octo-portraits now adorn the walls at Sy’s home.

Sy has been out and about talking about her new book for young adults, Amazon Adventure. You can hear her in this short interview on WGBH, along with the subject of the book, Scott Dowd, Senior Aquarist at the New England Aquarium. For more than 20 years, Dowd and his colleagues having been working with the native people to save many of the fish that make their way to North America’s home aquariums. Amazon Adventure tells the surprising journey of these small fish.

While at the aquarium, OctoNation caught up with Sy. She fields a few questions in this short video. OctoNation is the largest Octopus Fan Club with 83,900 followers on Instagram and 32,500 followers on Facebook. That’s one of their t-shirts below.

Sy also spoke to the BBC for the show, Natural Histories: Octopus. This “programme” (as our English friends spell it) will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 15 August at 11am, and repeated at 9pm the following Monday. It’ll be kept on the BBC iplayer and be available to download until September 15.

The Octopus and the Professor. The summer reading list of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is, as you’d imagine, long on weighty political books and studies of inequality, but he’s been immersed in a “fascinating book by a fellow named Sy Montgomery.”

“I, never, personally have been terribly interested in octopuses,” Reich admits, “but this is an absolutely fascinating, interesting, enjoyable, thought-provoking, piece of work.” To which we can only add that if you haven’t seen Reich’s documentary Inequality for All, you’re missing the best concise explanation of this problem, and the best use of graphics to explain statistics. Inequality for All is as swiftly told as a thriller or a murder mystery.

As part of the celebration of Henry David Thoreau’s 200th birthday, Sy was honored to receive the Henry David Thoreau Prize from PEN New England, a chapter of PEN America. The Thoreau Prize is awarded annually to “a writer demonstrating literary excellence in nature writing.” Previous winners include Gretel Ehrlich, E. O. Wilson, Gary Snyder, Peter Matthiessen, Diane Ackerman, and Linda Hogan.

Bella Polpo. Ricca, a publisher in Rome, has just bought the rights to publish The Soul of an Octopus (or Polpo) in Italy. And a publisher has just signed up to translate Journey of the Pink Dolphins into Chinese.

The Andrew Luck Book Club. Sy enjoyed talking with Andrew Luck, the Indianapolis Colts quarterback, about The Soul of an Octopus. You can hear Andrew and Sy discuss play-action passes, scrambling on third-and-long, and protecting the pocket. Actually, no. It’s all octos and Mr. QB asks good questions.

Brain Pickings. The nimble Maria Popova has gained a large following for her discussions of fascinating thinkers, artists, and writers. Recently writing about the “central mystery of consciousness,” Popova referred to The Soul of an Octopus, which she also wrote about in earlier post.

The wonders of inner lives. Coco and her mom, Jessica, are reading The Soul of an Octopus. Coco is 11 years old. She has autism and Rett Syndrome. She doesn’t speak, and until two years ago everyone thought she was nonverbal, says Jessica. But then Jessica discovered a way for Coco to communicate by pointing at big capital letters on a clear sheet. Coco goes letter-by-letter until she has completed her thought. “Now we know she is highly verbal and has been misunderstood her whole life (and is still so misunderstood by many),” says Jessica.

They are having a good time reading Sy’s book. “She is really identifying with these octopuses!” says Jessica. Here are Coco’s thoughts about three different parts of the book:

“Octopuses are awesome. Octopuses are clearly more intelligent than they look. Autistic people are also more intelligent than they look. Besides autistics there are probably many other creatures who are misjudged because they look or move differently than what humans consider to be normal. Seeing the truth about someone when it contradicts what you always thought might be scary for some. Leaving behind long held assumptions can be difficult because doing so can feel antithetical to our core beliefs.

“Dying octopuses can become violent. People can easily misunderstand octopus behavior . They are a lot like humans yet so alien to us too. Can we presume to understand these creatures? Getting to know them is a first step. Having been misunderstood my whole life has made me particularly sensitive to this.

“Do animals feel what we feel? Do they attain wisdom through life experiences like humans? Scientists have looked for evidence except they are assuming that behaviors are the only indicators of the internal workings of the creatures they are studying. I am a creature whose behaviors are closely monitored. Bcbas [Board Certified Behavior Analysts] track and analyze my behaviors. So do they know my mind? Dare I say certainly not. I behave in ways that can be confusing. I scream sometimes when nothing is wrong. I pull hair when I want kids to like me. Once my cat came up for a pet and I picked her up by the tail. Never would I want to hurt her. I love her. My hare brained compulsions do not add up to the sum total of my intellect. Speaking of hares, who is to say that they do not have brilliant brains? It’s time we humans stopped making assumptions that are unfair and unfounded. Calling a bunch of ignorant observations data does not make it scientific fact. There are wonders and inner lives in all animals and people.”

Thank you Coco and Jessica. Sy loved hearing from you.

The most wonderful things just show up in Sy’s mail. These games were created by a reader in Poland, graphic designer Magdalena Stadnik. She had read the Polish translation of Journey of the Pink Dolphins. “I love it,” she wrote. “The book is un-put-downable magic.” The game Creatures include beautiful and endangered animals like the hirola, the gharial and the indri. Another game, Spectres, highlights animals who recently went extinct. Each species is represented in beautiful detail on black and white cardboard cards. To play, you put all the cards showing the animals face down next to one another. Turn over any two; if they’re identical, collect them and reveal another two. If different, put them back where you found them, and let another player take a turn. Your aim, like Noah’s, is to collect matching pairs. The player with the most matching pairs wins.

Dear Match Book: What Books Best Capture Science and Nature? Match Book is a New York Times dating service for readers looking for a good book. (You know the plot: Book club seeks a good book, meets a good book thanks to the Times, and the rest is a page-turning happily ever after.) One science book that Match Book suggests? The Soul of an Octopus.

The Soul of an Octopus is #4 on the Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller list of nonfiction paperbacks for May 28.

What do NFL Quarterbacks do in the off season? Andrew Luck is reading The Soul of an Octopus. Top that Tom Brady.

Bank Street College of Education has chosen The Great White Shark Scientist as one of the Best Children’s Books of 2017.

New translations on the way. ART Grup Editorial has signed up to publish The Soul of an Octopus in Romania. And a Spanish publisher will bring The Spell of a Tiger to that country.