This could have been a great book. Loaded with information about spiders from around the world, the author, a professor of Animal Behavior at the University of Canterbury, shows an impressive knowledge of her subject. There are colour photographs or sketches of the lifecycle or anatomy of many of the thousands of species of spiders, many of them very confusing, but colourful, along with a miniature map of where they reside. Their predatory habits and their predators and intricate web weaving with many types of silk threads are discussed in great detail. Myths about their dangers are effectively exploded. Their usefulness as harbingers of ecological change and the potential to mimic them in medical sciences and engineering are carefully explored.
What spoils all of this for me is the layout, with much of the text barely readable in very fine and faint print, some of it on a coloured background that made it impossible to read without a magnifying glass. I have recently had my eyes checked ( 20/20, right eye, 20/30 on the left) so I cannot be alone in this complaint. After about 100 pages, I gave up reading the finer print and scanned only the bold bigger writing.
2.5/5
Thanks, The Economist.
The Passionate Reader 