Amman and Peterson (coauthors, Eating Apes
) offer a revelatory collection of photos and text on elephants. Ammann's photographs capture an astonishing range of elephant behavior, but Peterson's text—with its scope, synthesis of history and observation, précis of the ivory trade and conservation—is what distinguishes this book. He spins the history of elephant research into mini-mysteries of how scientists struggled to understand elephants' secretive behaviors. Why do male elephants vanish from time to time? Do elephants communicate infrasonically like blue whales? Peterson's awe and affection for the creatures is contagious—readers will be moved by his description of how females form life-long families (males are “isolated drifters”) and occasionally speak in choruses, in the elephant equivalent of “we.” The photographs and text complement each other beautifully in their respective odes to the “improbable” physicality of the elephant's body: the tusks, the trunk—an organ coordinated by 150,000 interlocking muscles used to suck water from parched riverbeds, console babies, communicate, grasp and convey emotion. A stunning testament to the “last of the giants standing, bereft, at the door of ancient time.” (May)
