A review by readersaurusrobin
Anthill by Edward O. Wilson

2.0

It took me many reading sessions to begin to feel engaged by this book. I wanted to like it quite a bit more than I did. The large middle section about lives and travails of ant colonies in the Nokobee woods was, by far, the most interesting section. Knowing that the author is a nationally-recognized ant expert, this part is particularly worth reading. I did learn quite a bit about ant life and colony structure - Fascinating. When he started writing about ant-gods and ant feelings, my attention began to wander. It just went on too long. The preceding sections about Raff's parents' cliched-doomed southern romance and his own naive-boy meets wild girl at Harvard are not well done. Maybe Wilson felt he needed these to get people to read the environmentally sensitive part. I don't know. I'd have preferred a short story or non-fiction piece solely about ants.