Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mary Roach has been well-known for giving a zinger-twist on non-fiction topics for years, and this book is no different.

Let's frame a whole bunch of nature events in terms of how it pisses off us, Homo Sapiens, and put a spotlight on how to deal with those troublesome pests.

All told, it was fun, sometimes gruesome (bears), annoying and deadly (monkeys in cities), annoying and annoying (gulls), and all the possible solutions we've come up with to deal with these, and more. Birds, in particular, are a real menace -- and trying to figure out ways to scare them off or relocate them can sometimes be a real nightmare. Some, however, require some nightmares in order to scare them off. A particularly interesting example is strewing corpse effigies in a gruesome tableau where crows gather.

I suppose I'd be slightly off-put if I found someone hung upside-down with their organs hanging out, outside of my residence. Funnily enough, appealing to the head-on-spike method seems to work with a lot of different species. Who'd have thunk? ;)

A lot of valuable information, entertainingly presented. Well worth the read.

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