A review by daumari
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery

2.0

Ehh. I was neither surprised nor astounded by Sy Montgomery's relationships with octopuses at the New England Aquarium, so the title feels misleading. It was a pretty decent memoir of her experiences and relationships with the octopuses, their caretakers, and volunteers at NEAq. Perhaps instead of "An Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness", an exploration of friends we made along the way?

This is the emotional opposite of [book:Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate|7367893]- while Mather, Anderson, & Wood's book was chock-ful of information and scientific literature references, Soul sprinkles facts in between the emotional connections and resonances she gets communing with Kali, Octavia, and Karma (Jennifer Mather and Roland Anderson actually do make appearances as Montgomery travels twice to the Seattle Aquarium, once for a conference and once for the Octopus Blind Date). While I commend her empathy for non-humans, I do have to raise my eyebrow a couple times when she cites websites on love being transcendental vibrations or whatever... c'mon, Sy, while I get emotion is your schtick, pick something a little more grounded?

Anyway. Readable, but more as a memoir than any hard hitting science. Still haven't found the perfect cephalopod book, alas.