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highly recommended |
Delightful and moving 
One of the funniest and most wrenching memoirs out there, compulsively readable, the kind you stay up in the wee hours to finish. If you have the remotest interest in Africa, primate research, or ways in which primate society is like our own, read Robert Sapolsky's memoir of his youth and pass it along to others.
not so humourous 
I'm afraid that I would hesitate to recommend this book to any of my animal lover friends. Although very funny at points, the story can be very depressing and sends out all the wrong messages to budding conservationists. It only takes one good man to turn his back on a good cause for things to spiral out of control. Therefore if having to read a 'Primate's Memoir' take it as one man's experience and not an instruction to give up on the fight to save the environment and wildlife of our planet.
great book, lab rats and all!
As much about Africa, adventure and human nature as about baboons, A Primate's Memoir is a hilarious, sad, thrilling and informative book suitable for all sorts of readers.
I really have to disagree with Chris Lemoine's two-star rating of this book (on Amazon). Chris describes Sapolsky's humorous descriptions of interactions with various people in Africa as demeaning, as poking fun at how "backwards" these other cultures seem. I see it quite differently - Sapolsky seems to laugh not at the PEOPLE but at the DIFFERENCES between various people and cultures - he views the Masai, New Yorkers, the British, the baboons and himself all with the same critical/humorous eye (ok, well... he does give the British a particularly hard time). He manages also to hint at how SIMILAR we all are in grand scheme of things. This is precisely what makes the book so special, so worth reading.
Yes, as Chris ponts out - Sapolsky tortures rats in labs. And yes, I have problems with such things. But the book is not about rats, or labs, or the glorification of animal experimentation....see The Monkey Wars by Deborah Blum). Sapolsky may not love his lab rats much, but he certainly loves the baboons and their habitat and has done his bit to try to protect them. And A Primate's Memoir is a great way for him to teach others - non-scientists, people who may just be looking for a good read, an adventure, or something about Africa, maybe -about the way things go when you're a field researcher hanging out with baboons in Kenya!
The best book I've ever read
The review from Scotland was way off... This is the best book I've ever read. There is nothing more worth saying.
reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
primate's memoir, among, baboons, life, memoir, neuroscientist, primate, unconventional
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based on 71 reviews
