Wishful Wednesday, 11 August

The meme is hosted by Brooke Bluestocking Guide.

This week my wish is highly unusual but nevertheless I find it very interesting. As I've been recently stung by a wasp I would like to read a book about instects - these really creepy and alien creatures, leading mostly invisible life right next to us. Do you find vampires exciting? Check out some simple facts from the life of an ordinary spider and you might be very surprised indeed! The book is entitled "Insectopedia" and it was written by Hugh Raffles.

Cover of Insectopedia

  Let me quote the expert opinion here, published on the page of  Amazon.com:

"Insectopedia is one of the most remarkable books I have read in a long time. Like its subject, it is many things, all of them fascinating. First, it is a reference book of the first order: it is loaded with facts--some profound, others curious, and still others laugh-out-loud funny. Insectopedia is also part personal memoir, scientific detective story, and even cultural study. We travel the Amazon, visit Chernobyl, and enter laboratories and sidewalk cafes in search of insects and the ideas and cultures they inspire. Insects stir eerie fascination: they are beautiful, disgusting, important, and annoying. To some they are tasty. To others they are a source of sexual fetish. Who knew? In Raffles's hands insects become windows into our culture, science, health--even our psyche. In each page of Insectopedia, the more we learn of insects, the more we come to face--and sometimes even challenge--our own views of the world.
Hugh Raffles's work stands alone for what it says both about its subject and about us. After reading Insectopedia, it's hard to look at a cricket, a bumblebee, and a human being the same way ever again. I adored the book. What an accomplishment. And I thought I knew insects... --Neil Shubin"

Image via Wikipedia

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