5 reviews for:

The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing

Rachel Poliquin

4.28 AVERAGE

hanhanmarie102's review against another edition

4.25

informative reflective slow-paced

ovenbird_reads's review against another edition

3.0

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This is a really excellent, academic look at what taxidermy is, what it means, and how it is a reflection of its historical moment. However, I found that after the first few chapters I got bored. There's only so much one can read about gazing upon the skins of dead animals and what that says about us. The pictures in this book are beautiful. I really enjoyed looking at all the full colour plates. That's probably deeply ironic. Here I am, more interested in gazing upon pictures of the skins of dead animals than reading about why that gaze is meaningful.

If I were still marking papers in grad school I would give this book an A+. It's well thought out, carefully researched, and contains lots of really fascinating readings of animal bodies and our desire to preserve them for human view and consumption. But the bottom line is that it just couldn't sustain my interest over time. The balance of theory to story started to get too much for me and I ended up skimming a large portion of this towards the end.

Really worth looking at though.

exkahn's review against another edition

4.25

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

vulveeta's review against another edition

4.0

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a bit repetitive at times specifically in phrasing, but a very engaging theory of taxidermy.

christytidwell's review against another edition

5.0

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Beautifully written and fascinating history of taxidermy. Poliquin's reflections on the practice are thoughtful and intriguing and I found lots to ponder here. In addition, this book gets a little bump in its rating for being a lovely physical artifact.