I read about this book from by David George Gordon in a couple of different places (but forgot to write down where) and then Austin Kleon mentioned it in one of his posts and after a short wait for a library hold I had a lovely little tome of snail and slug knowledge in my hands: The Secret World of Slugs and Snails: Life in the Very Slow Lane. One thing I would like to tell you right away - it reads like a good mystery! Popular science book with a layer of humor, poetry, and lots of amazing references and interesting drawings full of character.
One of the main things I made notes on while reading this book were other books referenced in the text - see below (I mean - who does not want to learn "How to Attract a Wombat"? Or page through "Adventures with a Hand Lens:? or learn what is "Gardening for Independence" or what happens "When Snails Come to Paris"? :)
Lovely illustrations (by Karen Luke Fildes on instagram:karenlukefildes) reminded me of one of my art heroes - Hannah Hinchman and her wonderful book "A Life In Hand" (here is a youtube video Danny Gregory put up about this book). And I ended up digging into all sorts of things in biology (did you know that snails use copper to bind oxygen in their blood?), linguistics, and nature history (different words for science that studies shells and those who live in them: conchology and malacology) and statistics (Numbers and percentages of dextral and sinistral shells).
I will enjoy following the trails that this book left for some time :)
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