PESTS How Humans Create Animal Villains

Courtney Patterson is an especially engaging narrator whose pleasingly expressive voice can make almost any topic palpable, including rats, mice, and other common vermin. Pests. In some places they're elephants, or cats. The listener will be surprised to hear how many varieties there are, and how deeply pests are wedded to the human ecosystem and the balance of nature generally. Patterson anchors her performance to the narrative's lively first-person reporting, treating its loose assembly of chapters as a travelogue, which in many ways it is. Taking us from one research lab and one ecological site to another, this personable and accomplished narrator maintains a steady engagement with, and at the same time a comfortable distance from, all these snakes, coyotes, pigeons, and other bothersome critters. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2023]