"Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson writes about insects with such enthusiasm and affection, you’ll wish you were an entomologist! But it’s never too late to develop a love for bugs, and
Buzz, Sting, Bite is the perfect guide—filled with surprising, fascinating, and often extremely funny stories.”
— Thor Hanson, author of Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees
“Charming. . . . Sverdrup-Thygeson strives to make you
like insects, too, highlighting them in all their buzzing, stinging, biting glory.”
— Sam Kean
“We live on the planet of insects, and Sverdrup-Thygeson brings it to life in this sharp, good-humored presentation. . . . A classy and brightly informative appreciation of insects—all you could ask for in a popular natural history.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Insects — from jewel beetles to stink bugs — present an embarrassment of riches, as ecologist Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson spectacularly proves. She tours their anatomy, reproduction and more, delivering a hail of facts with brio and precision.”
— Barbara Kiser
"Sverdrup-Thygeson is a lively, witty, and discerning guide through the scientific lore surrounding some of the tiniest—though still very powerful—organisms on Earth."
— Michael Berry
"A cornucopia of fascinating insights that paint a portrait of the deep interconnectedness of human culture with our six-legged friends."
— Lynn Dicks
"The author possesses an infectious enthusiasm for the bugs she profiles and manages to imbue every maxilla and mating habit with wonder. . . .
Buzz, Sting, Bite will foster affection for its winged, creeping, and crawling subjects, even among its most bug-shy readers."
— Booklist
“If you want to spend a few hours glorying in the unconsidered world of insects, and marveling at a new fact every page or two . . . then
Buzz, Sting, Bite is a joy.”
— The Times (London)
“[Sverdrup-Thygeson] guides us round a huge cabinet of curiosities, and is the best kind of teacher. The stories she tells are so strange and absorbing that we don’t notice that we’re being systematically educated. . . . She has a serious purpose, and succeeds magnificently.”
— Charles Foster
“Conservation biologist Sverdrup-Thygeson exudes an infectious enthusiasm for all things entomological in this curiosity-provoking primer.”
— Publishers Weekly
"A very enthusiastic look at the flying, crawling, stinging bug universe world, and why we should cherish it."
— John Timpane
"Sverdrup-Thygeson writes like a scientist but in a spare, charming way. . . . The book is stuffed with the kind of trivia that wouldn’t be out of place at a bar (bees can recognize human faces! cockroaches can be used to search bomb sites!), but it’s also a deftly woven treatise on why we need insects and why they need us to survive."
— Heather Hansman
"Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson writes playfully and accessibly about the world of insects — where they live, how they thrive, what we can learn from them, why they're so necessary. . . . Fascinating."
— BuzzFeed
Coverage from NPR
