This remarkable work is like no other this reader has encountered in many years. It is astonishingly inventive, diverse in subject and style and remains intensely interesting throughout the panoply of subjects treated. Each new chapter is as if written by a different person. From treatises on the nature of creatures in the wild, or in zoos, or in the imagination, to remembrances of conferences as varied as balloon art and the natural world, it sails through the random thoughts of a writer of great skill and immense creativity.

Often self-deprecating in a curiously wry way, the author provides insight into a mind constantly in motion and eternally searching for meaning in the strangest places. The book ends, for instance in an extended meditation upon imaginary shadow animals created originally for the amusement of a small child but wandering into the motivations of adults trying to live happily in an unhappy world. Giraffes are the theme, but “real” giraffes have little to do with the meaning and substance. It’s wonderful and compelling prose with a consistently skewed attitude that entertains endlessly.

Clearly the product of an experienced and talented writer, this collection will amuse and entertain any reader, whether a fiction afficionado or a nonfiction stalwart. It’s that good. There’s even a little political criticism disguised as a study of the different kinds of wasps. I can recommend it to anyone looking for something that can be read as a whole or in snippets.