Changes

We can learn a lot from an author such as this - not least several animals whose names get rid of awkward tiles on Scrabble. Among a host of uncredited observations there are toxic birds, Komodo dragons climbing ladders, and more. You could also argue we learn a lot about one animal in particular through this book - us ourselves. Did we learn to bury our dead because animals were eating the corpses and getting to like them too much?

But oddly the subject continues to be compelling, and the whole piece has an unusual quality for a non-fiction biology book. It's no real surprise to see the work in progress had been in ''Granta'', for there remains a continual dropping in and out of his family's own interactions with danger, from a snake bite to a cougar up a tree the young Grice was safely averted from. The personal touch, the authority and companion no-nonsense, dry, almost macabre way of looking at death and destruction (witness the three uses of the verb ''flense'' in the first two chapters alone) all add up to a very interesting survey.