Book of the Week #27

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery (Atria Books, 2015)

"Her name was Athena, but I didn't know that then. I knew little about octopuses—not even that the correct plural is not octopi, as I had always believed (it turns out you can't put a Latin ending—i—on a word derived from the Greek, like octopus). But what I did know intrigued me. Here is an animal that has venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange. It can change color and shape. It can taste with its skin. Most fascinating of all, I had read that octopuses are smart. This bore out what scant experience I had already had; like many who visit octopuses in public aquaria, I've often had the feeling the octopus I was watching was watching me back, with an interest as keen as my own." (from Chapter 1)

 One of two recent octopus-related books by Sy Montgomery this book received a starred review from Library Journal (p. 130 of the 6/1/2015 issue) and was one of their "editors' spring picks" for 2015.