Cricket Radio is beautifully written, and it deeply impressed even a hardened, grizzled cricketeer like me. I hope and believe that this book will find its way to not only entomologists and parents of budding entomologists everywhere, but also to the bookshelves of the birders of the world-who would have their eyes and ears opened to another major group of nature's singers. -- Ronald R. Hoy, Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University I could literally feel the obsession of John Himmelman for these animals, and it is contagious. This wonderful, engaging book brings us up close, in terms of the sensual, intellectual, and historical aspects of night-singing insects and the people who love and study them. Cricket Radio provides many points of contact and will open up a new window to the natural world that is available to almost everyone, everywhere. This book is a real treat. -- Bernd Heinrich, author of The Nesting Season
John Himmelman is author and illustrator of nearly seventy books, including Guide to Night-Singing Insects of the Northeast and Discovering Amphibians: Frogs and Salamanders of the Northeast. Visit his website at www.johnhimmelman.com.
Cricket Radio is beautifully written, and it deeply
impressed even a hardened, grizzled cricketeer like me. I hope and
believe that this book will find its way to not only entomologists
and parents of budding entomologists everywhere, but also to the
bookshelves of the birders of the world-who would have their eyes
and ears opened to another major group of nature's singers. --
Ronald R. Hoy, Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell
University
I could literally feel the obsession of John Himmelman for these
animals, and it is contagious. This wonderful, engaging book brings
us up close, in terms of the sensual, intellectual, and historical
aspects of night-singing insects and the people who love and study
them. Cricket Radio provides many points of contact and will
open up a new window to the natural world that is available to
almost everyone, everywhere. This book is a real treat. -- Bernd
Heinrich, author of The Nesting Season
In this ear-opening book, John Himmelman shows us not only how to
identify the songs these insects have sung for 250 million years
but what those songs mean and how they are made...He writes about
the effect of these songs on human dreams; about the
Ensifera (the night-singers: crickets, katydids and the
like) and how the sounds they make stimulate the human brain...We
humans have shut down our listening skills to survive in a
confusingly noisy world. Learning to listen to these songs is
nothing less than soul-stirring. -- Susan Salter Reynolds * Los
Angeles Times *
[An] engaging, knowledgeable portrait of "night-singing
insects."...Cricket Radio is filled with stories of
collecting trips in which the author finds previously unseen
animals or identifies a species far outside its known range. In
these moments, Himmelman's enchantment with the entomological
soundscape is so complete that he can turn the most unpromising
site--his Connecticut backyard, for example--into an insect lover's
terra incognita, shimmering with possibility. -- Hugh Raffles *
Wall Street Journal *
At a time when night-singing insects have slipped beyond our
notice--indeed, are more likely to be heard as previously-recorded
NatureSounds than in a backyard--John Himmelman seeks to reconnect
us to creatures whose songs form a part of our own natural history.
On warm summer evenings, night-singing insects produce a whirring,
chirping soundscape--a calming aural tapestry celebrated by poets
and naturalists for millennia. But "cricket radio" is not broadcast
for the easy-listening pleasure of humans. The nocturnal songs of
insects are lures and warnings, full of risks and rewards for these
tiny competitive performers. What moves crickets and katydids to
sing, how they produce their distinctive sounds, how they hear the
songs of others, and how they vary cadence, volume, and pitch to
attract potential mates, warn off competitors, and evade predators
is part of the engaging story Cricket Radio tells. Himmelman's
narrative weaves together his personal experiences as an amateur
naturalist in search of crickets and katydids with the stories of
scientists who study these insects professionally. He also offers
instructions for bringing a few of the little singers into our
homes and gardens. We can, Himmelman suggests, be reawakened to
these night songs that have meant so much to the human psyche. The
online insect calls that accompany this colorfully illustrated
narrative provide a bridge of sound to our past and to our vital
connection with other species. If you enjoy night-singing insects
you'll enjoy this book! -- Ian Paulsen * The Guardian online *
Warm summer nights resonate with the chirruping of crickets and
other night-singing insects. Amateur naturalist and writer John
Himmelman seeks to reconnect us to these often-unseen musical
creatures by mingling tales of his own searches for grasshoppers,
cicadas and katydids with the latest professional research
investigating why and how they sing, to attract mates and ward off
predators. * Nature *
[Himmelman] has written the most exuberant, thoughtful, and
heart-felt work on singing insects ever published--a detailed
assembly of scientific information blended with personal witness
and nature writing the likes of which we rarely see...Eleven years
in the making, Cricket Radio: Tuning In the Nightsinging
Insects not only tells you all you'd ever want to know about
the biology of sonic insects, but also about the author's
experiences in stalking these wild and wonderful sounds for many
years. He teaches us how to listen precisely on a cricket-stalking
expedition, to move silently in the night woods, cup our hands to
tune in to the source more accurately, and move closer to the
quarry to capture the singer and figure out exactly who he is. --
David Rothenberg * Orion *
Pity those who live with the ceaseless surf of urban noise and are
denied the surround-sound pleasure of crickets and katydids winding
their watches and shaking their maracas through languid summer
nights. That music is the quintessential soundtrack to shooting
stars, backyard barbecues, and quiet nights on docks and porches.
Amateur naturalist John Himmelman understands the ancient allure of
the night-singers, and his Cricket Radio is a work of
obsessive and rambling scholarship that offers appreciation and
information in equal measure. -- Brad Zellar * Utne Reader *
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