Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Celebrate Bat Appreciation Month - The Secret Lives of Bats - a fall hotlist title from Thomas Allen & Son


October is, no surprise, official Bat Appreciation Month. There are more than 1,300 species of bats worldwide; they range from cute to strange to scary; they aid farming by eating insects, thus reducing the need for pesticides; they pollinate plants; and, according to Merlin Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International, they are gentle, cuddly creatures with off-the-charts intelligence and sophistication. Tuttle has just written The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $34.00 CDN), which begins with his first bat cave exploration as a teenager, when dozens of gray bats landed on him, seeking places to hide. Many people would have run screaming from the cave, but Tuttle was captivated, as readers of this book will be as he explains his fascination.

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