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Shop nowHow to Be a Good Creature
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“Sy Montgomery (The Soul of an Octopus) has led a rich life, full of good creatures, and she has generously shared her experiences throughout the years. This lovely book describes some of the most beloved and memorable critters she has known and the lessons and knowledge she has gained from them. We’ve all had our lives enriched by animals and for better or worse, we are intricately tied to the nature around us. Montgomery helps us feel what we gain from those connections to animals.”
— Rachel • Bookshop Santa Cruz
Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet's rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy's life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets.
This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals—Sy's friends—and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.
Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and swum with piranhas and pink dolphins in the Amazon. To research her books, films, and articles, she has worked in a pit swarming with 18,000 snakes in Canada and been hunted by a tiger in India. She has hiked the Altai Mountains of Mongolia's Gobi desert in search of snow leopards and penetrated the cloud forests of Papua New Guinea to radio collar tree kangaroos. No place is too far to go to bring animals' true stories to adults and children around the world. Sy is the author is the nationally bestselling author of over fifteen nonfiction books, including Temple Grandin, Birdology, and Spell of the Tiger. She writes for print as well as broadcast in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible at what she considers a critical turning point in human history.