Състояние: Много добро
Забележка: Отлично книжно тяло и корици, леко захабена обложка, неизползвана книга.
Издателство: Bloomsbury
Град на издаване: London
Наличност: singular
Ширина (мм): 135
Височина (мм): 200
Дебелина (мм): 20
Корици: Твърди

When BBC Radio 4's Material World programme announced a search for the UK's top amateur scientist, little did anyone expect that the winning experiment would comprise one of our humblest garden pests.

Ruth Brooks posed this question: Do snails have a homing instinct? The nation was gripped by the unexpected thesis and by Ruth's online diaries, which catalogued her trials and tribulations as she got to grips with these slimy little gastropods. A Slow Passion is Ruth's story, with anecdotes and misadventures galore. What starts out as a ruthless vendetta against the snails that are decimating her hostas becomes a journey of discovery into the whys and wherefores of snail life. When Ruth dumps a group of the worst offending snails in a far-off wood, she decides to paint their shells with nail varnish, just to see what happens. And guess what, they come back home. This is the beginning of an obsession that sees the grandmother-turned-scientist prowling about and pouncing on the snails in her garden, sneaking off on night-time missions to repatriate bucketloads of painted snails, reading up on the sex-life of snails (which turns out to be unexpectedly romantic) and, eventually, sending off the application to a national competition for home science.

With charming illustrations, A Slow Passion is a sweet, funny and surprising investigation into the hidden life of snails, which will change the way you look at the smaller (and slower) things in life.

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Contents

Introduction 1

1 Snail Races 11
2 My Childhood Garden 17
3 Spark of Inspiration 31
4 Grand Designs 51
5 Tempest and Shelter 67
6 On the Rampage 75
7 Pellets of Shame 85
8 Beer Traps 93
9 The Prodigal Snail 105
10 Location, Location, Location 113
11 Data Sets 123
12 Love Darts 137
13 Home and Away 153
14 The Learning Curve 167
15 Misadventures Galore 181
16 Chucking Snails 197
17 The Final Reckoning 211
18 Snail Races 229
References 239
Acknowledgements 241