An easy read, but highly enjoyable and informative - even if octopuses (or sea creatures at large) are not your typical forte, I would still suggest that there will be a lot you can learn and laugh at within this book. He is the author of Metazoa and the bestselling Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Royal Society Science Book Prize and has since been published in more than twenty languages. This book is clearly trying to follow that superb, enlightening and well tested formula and unfortunately falls short.

In lab experiments, octopuses attain good results, able to negotiate mazes and unscrew jars containing food, using visual cues to achieve their goals. They have personalities and perhaps consciousness, although a consciousness fundamentally different from our own. Sy Montgomery's strange relationships with her cephalopod friends are fascinating in their similarities to human relationships.One never forgets it: one's respect, yet one's feeling of the hopelessness of any real intellectual sympathy. This is one of those books that I almost wish I’d written, except no one but Nayler could have done it justice. It isnt a straightforward natural history book so much as a swooning account of falling in love with tentacles. She encourages Vinnie to just, ‘Get doing’ instead of being held back by the fear of making mistakes.

And even though the answer to this question is yes, octopuses could bite you, you’ll soon learn that they usually won’t (unless you’re their prey, of course! He doesn’t skip over steps, but describes the best theories of how consciousness has developed starting with the simplest of life forms, and he’s also able to engage with the philosophical questions that consciousness raises. Even though real-life octopuses can’t bake pies with their arms, this book introduces the very real idea that octopus arms are AMAZING.

I received it as a gift which I'm so pleased about as I would never have chosen it for myself and I shudder to think what I would have missed. My advice is skip this if you want something serious, go for it if you like to read about an emotional person fingering an octopus. She was recently widowed and also still mourns the loss of her son, who disappeared into the Puget Sound some years ago.

I clung to every sentence like a limpet hoping that time would slow down so I could digest and remember every word. As a journalist and author and a young father, I’ve come to seek more vigorously things that make me smile, things I can cherish and appreciate. Loory's collection of wry and witty, dark and perilous contemporary fables is populated by people - and monsters and trees and jocular octopi - who are united by twin motivations: fear and desire. A fall at the aquarium heightens Tova’s concerns about aging alone in the beautiful three-level house her father built when she was 8.We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. A common octopus brain has 500m neurons, a “smartness” that ranks alongside dogs and even a three-year-old child. Cameron wants to make his aunt proud, but, although clearly smart, he can’t stop sabotaging himself – and blaming it on his mother. A delightful exploration of the fascinating octopus, taking young minds on an interactive journey of discovery!

And if you read the following books about octopuses, you’ll also find that they are escape artists, mythical beasts, the key to humankind and crime scene witnesses. Journalist and author Richard Schweid worked for ten years as a reporter for The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily newspaper. It starts with a discovery of potentially sentient octopuses, the scientist studying them, and the global corporation that controls her access and funding. He gives you similar OMG moments about octopuses, and retells some of the anecdotes I’d already seen in The Soul of an Octopus, but since his narrative pursues a different aim, I never felt like I was wasting time.Spoiler, she sucks at scuba diving and constantly has to have her hand held to stop her wandering off or letting all the air of her BCD is one stupid go.