The Genius Bat
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s for the digital review copy in advance. This hits bookstores everywhere on October 15th.
Let me preface this by saying, bats have been my favorite animal as long as I can remember. True, I went through a tiger phase as well, but I remember winning an essay contest in elementary school by writing about an endangered species and choosing none other than a fruit bat. So, I was already biased to appreciate this book if only from the nostalgia of winning a 4-foot long “endangered species” puzzle as a prize.
This book was fascinating in so many ways. Some of the science was over my head as a person with very little background in biology, but I still learned so much about bats and bat researchers.
I think the text could have benefited from some extra headings or ways to denote it was moving from one story to another. Chapters shifted and alternated from the author’s own research and adventures to the history of bat research and experiences of and interviews with other leading experts.
This felt like part science, part travelogue, part memoir, and part history. I was sad to miss out on the illustrations and photographs of bats that were referenced so often throughout. I would love to take a look at the finished copy and see all the images I missed by having a digital galley.
If bats were not my favorite animals, I might not have hung in there so well with this one, but I still found it interesting, good-humored, and overall a worthwhile read (if a little inaccessible to a layperson). I didn’t need any convincing to be intrigued by the world’s only flying mammal, but I think this book will sway the right audience to love this unique creature!
