The first book I took up from Penn State University Press’ cross-disciplinary Animalibus series was Marcus Baynes-Rock’s Among the Bone Eaters; Encounters with Hyenas in Harar. It was, to say the least, challenging. At first, I was irritated with it because it wasn’t what I had assumed it to be – a traditional book about hyenas. However in the end, I learned far more from it than I ever would have had it been a traditional book about hyenas.
Which is why when another volume from the Animalibus series, Mary Sanders Pollock’s Storytelling Apes; Primatology Narratives Past and Future recently arrived on my desk, I made an immediate mental note: “don’t make any initial assumptions about this book – just read it from cover to cover and see where it takes you.”
In the very near future, I will be doing my level best to follow this note to myself.
