Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants (Paperback)
Description
The New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback with an all-new afterword by the author.
Love them or loathe them, rats are here to stay-they are city dwellers as much as (or more than) we are, surviving on the effluvia of our society. In Rats, the critically acclaimed bestseller, Robert Sullivan spends a year investigating a rat-infested alley just a few blocks away from Wall Street. Sullivan gets to know not just the beast but its friends and foes: the exterminators, the sanitation workers, the agitators and activists who have played their part in the centuries-old war between human city dweller and wild city rat. Sullivan looks deep into the largely unrecorded history of the city and its masses-its herds-of-rats-like mob. Funny, wise, sometimes disgusting but always compulsively readable, Rats earns its unlikely place alongside the great classics of nature writing.
About the Author
Robert Sullivan is the author of The Meadowlands and A Whale Hunt, both New York Times Notable Books of the Year. He is a contributing editor to Vogue and a longtime contributor to the New Yorker. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
Praise for Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants…
"Engaging…a lively, informative compendium of facts, theories, and musings."
-Michiko Kakutani
"Immensely lively, enjoyable, learned, witty and yes, appealing."
-Philip Lopate
"… a rollicking, richly drawn history…[he] offers up a parade of eccentric characters who deserve to be in the movies."
"Fascinating."
"Hugely entertaining."
"[Approaches] his fleet-footed, fast-food-loving quarry with a naturalist's curiosity and a storyteller's fluency."
"Improbably enchanting... a funny, rodent-centered mélange of natural and urban history."
"The author excels at fluid and witty prose."
"An urban Thoreau…"
"Sullivan persuasively associates the 'truth' he learns about rats with a deeper understanding of both the history of New York City and the essence of mankind."
"Eloquent."
"Rats will both entertain and edify you about a part of the world you never thought much about."
"Sullivan beguiles us with remarkable tales about an inexhaustible topic."
"Skittering, scurrying, terrific natural history."
"Who knew a book about one of nature's most reviled creatures could make such great bedside reading?"
