The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

This book was recommended to me by my friend Glen Whipple. I respect his judgment, so I ordered it. The subtitle is, "A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness" and the author doesn't really deliver on this point. She does, however, introduce us to her passion for Octopuses, and reveals a lot about their anatomy and habits. I didn't exactly buy her interpretation of many behaviors she observed. She attributed much more intelligence and cognition than I would have, given the evidence. However, it's clear that these animals are fascinating and do have many more abilities than I would have ever guessed.

What kind of bugged me was that there was no diagram of the various octopus parts that she described. I had to kind of guess where they might be on the octopus; or if she did describe it, it didn't resonate with me in a way that I could "see" what she was talking about.

She also got off on some other issues as she explored this consciousness idea. She quoted other authors and compared other studies, etc., usually I find these digressions, when they are well done, fine and good. In this book, though, they were a little annoying Not real relevant or illustrative or intriguing. I would expect her to make more eloquent comparisons if she's going to go out on a limb every now and then. Maybe I'm just grumpy, though.

Another thing she did that was a little annoying was describe some of the aquarium's workers. These people weren't particularly interesting and this didn't add much to the story. I did admire their commitment to the sea life, though, but this was way overdone. They weren't described in an interesting way, either.

What I did like was her adventure to see octopuses in the wild. I liked her descriptions of the difficulties and challenges in finding them. It was also interesting to read about how relentless octopuses are in escaping captivity. The author did a good job of finding scientists and relating their experiences with octopuses, especially their talent to escape. These parts were fascinating.

Would I read it again? No. Am I intrigued by octopuses? Yes. Do I have more understanding and respect for them? Yes.