The Unexpected Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos and Other Wild Tales

Shortlisted for the 2018 Royal Society Investment Science Book Prize 'Endlessly fascinating.' - Bill Bryson 'Eye-opening, informative and very funny!' - Chris Packham 'Well-informed and downright funny' - Richard Dawkins History is full of strange animal stories invented by the brightest and most influential, from Aristotle to Disney. But when it comes to understanding animals, we’ve got a long way to go. Whether we’re watching a viral video of romping baby pandas or looking at a picture of penguins ‘holding hands’, we often project our own values – innocence, abstinence, hard work – onto animals. So you’ve probably never considered that moose get drunk and that penguins are notorious cheats. In The Unexpected Truth About Animals Zoologist Lucy unravels many such myths – that eels are born from sand, that swallows hibernate under water, and that bears gave birth to formless lumps that are licked into shape by their mothers – to show that the stories we create reveal as much about us as they do about the animals. Astonishing, illuminating and laugh-out-loud funny.

About the Author :
Lucy Cooke is a fellow of Durham University, a National Geographic explorer, TED talker and award-winning broadcaster with a Masters in zoology from New College Oxford, where she studied under Richard Dawkins. Her first book A Little Book of Sloth was a New York Times bestseller and spawned a major TV series for Discovery and a BBC Radio 4 documentary. The Truth About Animals, her first long-form book was shortlisted for the Royal Society prize and has been translated into nineteen languages. Her most recent book, Bitch- What Does it Mean to be Female? was cited as one of the best books of the year by both the Telegraph and the Guardian and was adapted into the BBC Radio 4 series, Political Animals. She is a columnist for BBC Wildlife Magazine and has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, The Times, Telegraph and New Scientist amongst other publications. She is a sought-after public speaker and has written, produced, and presented documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, Animal Planet and Discovery. She has presented on the BBC's 'Springwatch' and is a regular on BBC Radio 4.

Review :
A bloody fabulous read. Thoroughly recommend. A riot of facts....Cooke scores a series of goals with style and panache. Beautifully written, meticulously researched, with the science often couched in outrageous asides, this is a splendid read. In fact, I cannot remember when I last enjoyed a non-fiction work so much. Best science pick. Sigmund Freud's first paper involved the dissection of eels in an attempt to locate their testes. To his frustration, Freud failed to find any. The eel's life cycle remains slippery, notes natural-history broadcaster Lucy Cooke in her deeply researched, sassily written history of "the biggest misconceptions, mistakes and myths we've concocted about the animal kingdom", spread by figures from Aristotle to Walt Disney. Other chapters spotlight the sloth, vulture, hippopotamus, panda, chimpanzee and others, and dismantle anthropocentric clichés with scientific, global evidence. Lucy Cooke's The Unexpected Truth About Animals was a joy from beginning to end. Who could resist a writer who argues that penguins have been pulling the wool over our eyes for years, and that, far from being cute and gregarious, they are actually pathologically unpleasant necrophiliacs? Packed with knowledge and eye-opening animal history . . . almost every page contains something startling. In bringing us all this information, Cooke has clearly done her homework - travelling the world to see the animals for herself, and consulting many obscure books . . . a winning combination of thorough knowledge, lots of good jokes and a passionate love of animals that means Cooke can even mount convincing defences of such despised creatures as vultures. An often eye-popping, occasionally hair-raising, but ultimately joyous reminder of just how strange our world is. Lucy Cooke unravels myths that will make you laugh out loud. Her knowledge of all things, furry, slimy and scaly is jaw-dropping. Each of Cooke's thirteen breezy yet fact-stuffed chapters traces the origins of a long-standing myth about a species or class of animal. Best of the year's Natural History. Best for Fun Facts. Fascinating. TOP AUTUMN BOOK PICKS: Lucy Cooke’s fascinating book is full of mind-boggling stuff. Cooke takes much pleasure in throwing in all manner of amazing facts.