[.ca] The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators (ISBN 0385318901)

From Amazon.com:
Gordon Grice, a young essayist from rural western Oklahoma, writes winningly of insects in all their glory, basing his narrative on lifelong observations of creatures such as the black widow, praying mantis, brown recluse--and the occasional human being. For the black widow spider he professes an affectionate fascination, dangerous though the spider may be; for the brown recluse, a more dangerous creature still, he exhibits a healthy respect; for all the creatures who fall under his survey, he has many sympathies. Grice writes with good humor, even when he's writing of matters that are not for the squeamish, as when he describes the rather gruesome ways in which female mantises dispose of inconvenient mates or humans dispose of each other.

great prose, sophisticated biology:
Do yourself a favor and buy this book. If you like to read about the lives of strange critters, and appreciate fine prose and precise natural historical observation,you will enjoy this book immensely. The author also betrays a sophisticated understanding of both the science, and mystery, of life, which he nevertheless wears lightly. The down-to-earth spirit of Nebraska and Oklaholma also shines through the deceptively simple prose style. Finally, the book is devoid of any of the man and nature, circle of life, save the whale posing that mars so many nature books. This is true, backyard natural history, not politics. If you think you might like this book, you will.

Riveting:
Who knew just how deadly the world around us was? Grice covers a wide range of beasts: Spiders (Black Widow, Tarantula, Recluse a.k.a. Violin Spider), rattlesnake, pig, dogs (wolves, coyotes, jackals) and the praying mantis. He has a lyrical eloquence and interstices natural philosophy into the essays, making the book far more than a recitation or list of aspects of bestial killers. One slightly disturbing feature is Grice's juvenile behavoir in collecting insects and tossing them together in tanks to see who lives. I began to feel that I was reading the Diary of a Madman, and hurried through these anecdotes. The abilities of these various animals to kill and their instincts to murder--for food or fun--were fascinating, as were Grice's parallels to us as human predators.

Informative and Entertaining:
Grice portrays the predators of people in an enlightening and interesting way. I was so mesmerized by his experiences with such predators as the black widow, the pig, the tarantula, that I could not put the book down. The Red Hourglass was very well written, it provided factual information as witnessed by the author himself. It was so incredibly written, presenting the information not as a fact list, or text book style in leaving out description and emotion, but as a true literary masterpiece. I enjoyed this book immensly and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in nature, predation or wildlife biology.

Grice takes on arthropods with Poe-like sensitivity:
What the reader gets with this book are seven essays written by a literary/humanities based college professor on seven particular predators: the black widow, the praying mantis, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, pigs, dogs, and the brown recluse spider. The writing is surpisingly good and the subject matter, while somewhat dark and gory, is fascinating. The reader from Michigan calls this book 'backyard naturalism' in a derogatory manner. I am a biology major and, although the majority of Grice's claims appear consistent with similar data I have seen, this is not a hard science book; criticizing it in that context is an apples verses oranges category mistake. Conversely, I praise this work as 'backyard naturalism' at its best. I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Red Hourglass from front to back. Take a bit of Peter Matthiessen's literary organicism, a pinch of Steven King's macabre involvment, E. O. Wilson's entomology, a dash of Desiderius Erasmus' sad, pragmatic humor, and some of Montaigne's candor, and you can wile away sumptuous moments zoosynthesizing the adventure of the 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' crossed with a bored boy's deific experimentation with arthropods, among other animals; all written with starkness and skill. What's a long pig? one may ask. The very sight of egregious brown recluse bites makes me kiss the soil of northern California. This book is a good mix of the literary and scientific milieus. It draws one in by the curiousity and repulsion of the subject matter as ruse for the author's peculiar expository skill.

Erroneous Essays:
A lazyman's nature book, "The Red Hourglass" is pure anthropomorphism--the author, who gives entirely ancecdodal evidence about nature's various predators, devoid of a single footnote (his sources for the anecdotes are rarely named; they are simply called "a scientist," or "a doctor"), doesn't seem to have wanted to concern himself with empirical, noted evidence. In other words, the reader has to take Grice's word about the accuracy of his "scientific" and historical comments, since he doesn't want to be weighted down by bibliographic sources or even noting his own sources. Even the National Enquirer or other cheesy newspaper tabloid occasionally mentions its sources. To be sure, this book makes for chilly reading, despite a less-than-sophisticated prose style, but don't rely on it as a nature guide. Rather, if you must read it, do so as a single person's view of the world of predators. Without scientific background or foundations, his voice is no more authoritative than yours or mine.