WINTER WORLD The Ingenuity of Animal Survival

The author explores the adaptations of animals to extreme cold, explaining the important differences between torpor and hibernation. While the work is reminiscent of a series of science lectures, its moderate doses of chemistry, physics, biology, and botany will engage general readers. Heinrich's stories of taking students on wintry expeditions into the field make him sound like a wonderful hands-on teacher. Narrator Mel Foster reads with little emotion and a nearly mechanical tone. His renditions of the many genus and species names don't roll off his tongue with any fluency, giving him little resemblance to a life scientist. Since the author writes in the first person, Foster does not come through well as his surrogate. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2009]