May 3, 2011 • Category: Blog, Excerpts, Promotions
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Amy Stewart, author of the New York Times bestsellers Wicked Plants and Flower Confidential, is back with her newest book, Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon’s Army and Other Diabolical Insects. (Be sure to see the hilarious trailer for the book at bottom, where you’ll also find an excerpt.) And, as is typical with Stewart’s books, there’s been a wealth of national media attention, including a New York Times interview; a Fresh Air interview; and an NPR Weekend Edition interview.
Wicked Bugs is a darkly comical look at the sinister side of our relationship with the natural world. Stewart details over one hundred of our worst entomological foes–insects that infest, infect, and generally wreak havoc on human affairs. With wit, style, and exacting research, she has uncovered the most terrifying and titillating stories of bugs gone wild. It’s an A to Z of insect enemies, interspersed with sections that explore bugs with kinky sex lives (“She’s Just Not That Into You”), creatures lurking in the cupboard (“Fear No Weevil”), insects eating your tomatoes (“Gardener’s Dirty Dozen”), and phobias that feed our (sometimes) irrational responses to bugs (“Have No Fear”). Intricate and strangely beautiful etchings and drawings by Briony Morrow-Cribbs capture diabolical bugs of all shapes and sizes in this mixture of history, science, murder, and intrigue that begins—but doesn’t end—in your own backyard.
To celebrate, we’re giving away three copies of the book and three cute, cuddly stuffed bookworms, courtesy of Giant Microbes. Just leave a comment detailing your worst bug encounter–you can post it here on our blog or on our Facebook page and you’ll automatically be entered.
Want to purchase an autographed/personally inscribed book for yourself or a friend? Visit Stewart’s website for details. It would make a great Mother’s Day present, don’t you think?
Watch the book trailer:
Read an Excerpt:
Excerpt from Wicked Bugs
Tags: Amy Stewart, bookworm, Briony Morrow-Cribbs, Fresh Air, Giant Microbes, NPR, Terry Gross, The New York Times, Wicked Bugs
Kelli Rodda says...
My childhood home bordered a large park and a pond, and spiders were just part of landscape (interior and exterior). When I was 10, I got up in the middle of the night for a nature call.
May 3, 2011@ 12:05 PMIn my half-asleep stupor, I stepped on a large wolf spider that was loaded with spiderlings. Spiders were scurrying everywhere — over my feet, under baseboards and across the carpet, which was about the same color as the spiders.
I let out a scream that would put Janet Leigh to shame. My father came sprinting across the living room, no doubt thinking an intruder was in the house. Instead, he found me on top of the coffee table wriggling and shaking like a giant Jell-O salad.
I didn’t go back to sleep that night. For a few weeks afterward, I had nightmares about spiders.
I had arachnophobia until my early 30s, when I moved to the country and had to share my home with spider species I’d never even seen before. I have a new respect for these creepy creatures, but I still shudder thinking about that late-night encounter.
Jennifer in MamaLand says...
Oooh! I’d love a cuddly bug – and a book, of course!
May 3, 2011@ 12:02 PMWorst bug encounter? We don’t have too many scary bugs (that I know of). Do the fruit flies that we struggle against every summer count??? Seriously, let me just tell you that sourdough and fruit flies do NOT go together well – or perhaps they go together too well. There is apparently nothing that drives fruit flies crazier than the smell of fermentation.
Dot says...
My fondness of bugs as a child was moderated only by the rain of tent caterpillars onto the picnic table in the orchard at my Aunt & Uncle’s. That is, until the morning I woke in my bed with a spider (I swear it was ENORMOUS)dangling right above my face! I lay paralyzed & screaming until my mother came & rescued me. Even getting attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets as an adult was never as nightmare inducing as that spider encounter…
May 3, 2011@ 11:41 AMcommonweeder says...
As a beekeeper I was only occasionally stung by my honeybees, but one day I developed a severe allergy. After the trip to the hospital my husband was so nervous that he said we had to get rid of our single beehive asap. What made this a particular challenge is that our beehive was located on the second floor loft of our tractor shed. This location was chosen to keep the bees safe from bears, the kind of bears who had already destroyed two of our hives in the past. Our friend Paul who lived more than 2 miles away agreed to take the hives and a date was set. It was August. It was hot. It was so hot that instead of going to sleep inside that night, our very healthy hive needed lots of bees outside the hive, fanning their wings to cool the hive. My husband got up at 1 am and 2 am. Too many bees outside. Finally at 4 am he closed up the hive to keep the bees inside when it was moved. Our neighbor arrived at dawn with his pickup which was parked inside the shed, ready for the hive with the “supers” stapled together to be lowered into the bed of the truck. My husband and Paul tied a rope around the hive and prepared to lower it over the edge of the loft into the truck. Paul was on the ground and Henry in the loft lowering when the rope gave way. I was in the house (remember my allergy) watching out the window when I heard a thunk and then Paul and Henry came running out of the shed and out to the front of the house. They conferred and ran back into the shed, into the truck and came screaming across the yard and down the road, the hive upside down, but mostly intact, in the bed of the truck, with a stream of bees behind them. When they got to Paul’s house they tipped the hive right side up into the garden cart and then onto the spot that Paul had prepared. Paul tugged to try and make the hive a little more level – and then – he got stung. Henry never got stung. That’s my worst bug story, but I guess it isn’t really MINE. What we learned. Don’t use polypropylene rope for moving beehives.
May 3, 2011@ 11:37 AMKatie E-P says...
Oh my. This is a tossup. I think I’ll put one here and one on the facebook page
This one is more about my husband than me. We live in the south. Roaches (aka Water Bus) are a definite problem. Well, my dear husband kept saying he saw a roach on the counter in the mornings. I never saw them. Then he decided to clean out his Cuisinart coffee maker and run vinegar through, etc.
WELL, once the water started coming out, so did little cockroach wings and legs.
GROSS.
He cleaned it out six times. Still couldn’t get all of the parts out. We had to chuck it.
Can’t wait to read Amy’s new book!
May 3, 2011@ 11:34 AMApril Chase says...
I used to live in a trailer in the Deep South and it had a terrible flea infestation in the carpets. It was a rental so I couldn’t tear the carpets out and throw them away; I tried everything I could think of to get rid of them but they just kept coming back! And I was too broke to move… My feet and ankles were covered with bites. The chemical sprays I tried gave me headaches. Outside, there was a plethora of other bugs that would bite me if I tried to escape by hanging out in the lawn. The only consistently successful way I found to stay away from all the wee beasties was to fill the bathtub up and just sit there. I spent many an evening sitting in a half-full tub of cold water (it was hot out!) crying. Awful.
May 3, 2011@ 11:23 AMJen. says...
My worse bug incident was when I awoke to Japanese Beetles in my hair while sleeping by my mother’s roses. They were evidently attracted to the organic, flower-based shampoo I just started using (and quickly stopped)!
May 3, 2011@ 11:22 AMAnna says...
Halfway through eating a nice Belgian 72% chocolate bar, I noticed it contained some maggots. Eeeeeeuuuuuuuuwwwwwwww! That put me off chocolate bars for quite some time. Even when I did resume eating chocolate, I couldn’t help but inspect it first.
May 3, 2011@ 11:12 AMcathy says...
My worst bug encounter has to be when my husband and I were living in our first apt…basement unit…I began the day as usual…sitting in the living room on the couch and out of the corner of my eye I see a huge huge huge spider …first of all now don’t think I am telling a fish story and I’m saying he was bigger then he actually was but I know what I saw…he was as big as they come for around here in Iowa…anyways I acted like the movies scences and the woman and the mouse…standing on the couch screaming for my husband that is more afraid then I he comes running in there both the spider and him stop and stare at each other as in an old wild west movie waiting for the draw….slowly my husband grabs the close by hairspray…and sprays the heck out of him and throws a bowl over him…he slides a piece of cardboard under the bowl sprays some more hairspray as he ever so slowly once again lifts the edge of the bowl up…runs outside and smashes him like there is no tommorrow…we had similar times…and figured out the source of these visitations….but we learned that as they say they are just as scared of you as you are of them….
May 3, 2011@ 11:10 AMJacqueline D'Elia says...
My worst bug encounter was picking up a large flat garden stone to move in the garden. I pulled it up to rest on my upper body (ok my chest) and as I was carrying it soon started to feel hot stinging bites all over. I was covered in FIRE ANTS. I dropped the stone, grabbed a garden hose (while screaming), turned the nozzle and FULL FORCE blasted myself. Needless to say, I spent the next week with itchy painful discusting bites. Now, I always check stones for ants now before lifting. LESSON LEARNED.
May 3, 2011@ 11:05 AM