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The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
Audiobook9 hours

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

Written by Sy Montgomery

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

In this astonishing book from the author of the best selling memoir The Good Good Pig, Sy Montgomery explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus-a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature-and the remarkable connections it makes with humans.

Editor's Note

Intriguing and inspiring…

No one intrigues or inspires quite as much as author, naturalist, and animal-lover Montgomery. “The Soul of an Octopus” is an education on — and a love letter to — one of the most clever and emotionally intelligent animals in the sea. As in all of her books, Montgomery isn’t afraid to dive in and get her hands dirty, exploring alongside the octopuses while showing the utmost respect.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 12, 2015
ISBN9781622316175
Author

Sy Montgomery

In addition to researching films, articles, and thirty-six books, National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery has been honored with a Sibert Medal, two Science Book and Film Prizes from the National Association for the Advancement of Science, three honorary degrees, and many other awards. She lives in Hancock, New Hampshire, with her husband, Howard Mansfield, and their border collie, Thurber.

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Reviews for The Soul of an Octopus

Rating: 4.350597609561753 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

251 ratings70 reviews

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The book feels more like the diary of a woman who goes to an aquarium often to see Octopuses than a real study and exploration of the Octopuses conciousness.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a wonderful book done very well great description great emotion very lovely I want to see an octopus now nicely done. I could listen to the antics of the octopus day after day they’re just so incredibly interesting smart very sad they only live a short while
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A wonderful book that truly is able to reflect upon what it means to develop a relationship with another creature. The author shows great insight into her own experiences and it translates well. Overall a great read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    wonderful book with previously-unknown info about octopuses; melds science with author's emotion. I liked the reader's voice and inflection.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fascinating, moving exploration of an ocean creature with intelligence and grace. You will come to love these strange beings too. The author's joy with each encounter is infectious and her story is well written.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Well written, engaging, narration is soothing, and a very interesting topic. Just give it a listen and you'll be glad of it later.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Such a shocker that I would fall in love with a book about octopuses! So gently read, with excitement and perils; great joy and known sadness. It is a totally relatable journey. I hope to take many trips with this author and reader.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I already really like octopodes, so I figured this would be a good book, but I was totally unprepared for how immediately I was whisked into the world the author was experiencing. The writing is vivid and philosophical and educational and now I really just want to go get a pet octopus.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The author made me fall in love with these octopuses!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There is a plethora of good information on octopuses and other sea life in this book. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the New England Aquarium. It was fun to read a lot about this wonderful place. I did find myself wishing there was less discussion and drama on souls and consciousness, and more science. However, this is still a worthwhile read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A very nice, if slightly weird story with a sprinkling of science. I am a huge chephalpod fan so this narrative is easy to relate to.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Good Good Pig, and now this---Sy Montgomery takes you with you in so many ways---wonderful, wonderful writing----and SO many things I did not know about creatures out there in the huge watery spaces of ocean---or in more close circumstances--the aquariums she visited and where she became close friends with octopuses....and people. Should not be missed!!!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Clearly a labor of love, this book was both interesting, yet a bit more repetitive than I would have liked. Beautiful descriptions of parts of the natural world few get to experience, and many stories of unlikely communities and relationships both human and otherwise.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sy Montgomery is a naturalist who has done quite a bit of field research, but this is about time spent observing and interacting with octopuses, mostly in aquariums.

    This isn't a book about the biology of these sea creatures, but about their consciousness and intelligence. Not long ago, no one with scientific training would have said that octopuses, invertebrates with comparatively short life spans. If you're interested in the biology of octopuses, this isn't the book for you. Montgomery makes passing references to her field research from time to time, but that's all they are--passing references.

    This is a book about trying to understand how octopuses see the world, themselves, and us. She spends time, mostly at the New England Aquarium, observing and interesting with a series of octopuses--Athena, Octavia, Kali, and Karma. They each have different personalities, and interact differently with the people they meet, including Montgomery and the aquarium staff.

    As she interacts with the individual octopuses over the years, Montgomery tries to develop a better understanding of how the octopuses see the world. It's clear that they recognize individual humans, respond differently to them, and remember events. Yet octopus brains are organized very differently than ours, and a good deal of information processing goes on in their arms. They taste with their whole skin, and this is where they get a great deal of their information about the world around them. How does this affect how they view the world?

    Montgomery also recounts her training to become a diver so she can experience, if not the world as the octopuses see it, at least the world they live in, and some expeditions to study octopuses in the wild.

    It's a fascinating, enjoyable book.

    I borrowed this audiobook via Scribd.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    How did I overlook this one, when it first came out? That said, my timing couldn’t have been more perfect, since I recently read and loved Remarkably Bright Creatures, which is the perfect companion piece. This nonfiction book is even mentioned in that novel. It follows naturalist/author Sy Montgomery as she befriends several different octopuses, which will warm even the coldest heart. Very entertaining and so informative. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    truly one of the best books I've ever read .. loved it

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    "The Soul" is a charming behind-the-scenes look at the recent octopuses who have lived at the New England Aquarium. Montgomery's attempts at self-examination paled in comparison to her descriptions of the octopuses themselves, the other volunteers, and the fascinating facts she dropped like cookie crumbs. The book left me hungry for more of the details around the debate about octopus sentience, and made me even more curious about the research being done to answer these questions. Sweet and amusing, but not deep.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Having recently watched part of My Octopus Teacher, I passed by the book The Soul of an Octopus in the library and grabbed it to read. Showing how octopus have intelligence and understanding albeit so very different than humans, furthers my understanding of what a great and glorious world we live in and how things are never so clear cut as to what we believe they might be.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is an incredible book. The writer becomes acquainted with those who are in charge of the Boston aquarium. She begins to learn about the octopus. Gradually, she determines that these creatures are incredibly smart. They learn the touch of those who "know" them. The are adept at getting out of their cages, turning colors, hiding inside an object much smaller than they are. The details are quite amazing! All I can say is read it. I don't think you will be disappointed.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Charming, strong first chapter. Feels like a series of articles, there's some repetition, I counted five times how octopus eggs are compared to grains of rice.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I always enjoy Sy Montgomery's books. Her writing style brings her subjects to life. This time it's octopuses. I never thought of an octopus as anything more than a strange blob. Now I know they have unique personalities, play, and can even change their color at will. The scientific facts are interlaced with Ms. Montgomery's own journey to understanding to make an interesting read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I learned so much about octopuses! I really want to go to an aquarium to see one now.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, author, and documentary scriptwriter. This book received The Best Nonfiction of 2015 by The Daily Beast, Library-Journal's Best Sci-Tech Book of 2015 and other accolades including being a National Book Award Finalist. Based on all the awards, I made the right choice when I decided to read it.The book is educational in many ways. I knew nothing about octopuses (yes, that's the correct plural of octopus which I learned on the first page, second paragraph!). I had never given them a second thought but I soon learned what fascinating creatures they are. It's a personal accounting of Ms. Montgomery's interactions with them at the New England Aquarium and she soon discovered they are individuals with their own emotions and they change color when their mood changes. Those she interacted with were gentle (Athena), assertive (Octavia), curious (Kali), and joyful (Karma).An octopus can be dangerous so people who work in aquariums must know how to deal with them. They vary in size from just inches to very large and have eight tentacles with suckers that can taste human skin. Also, these suckers act like a conveyor belt as food travels to their mouth. They are escape artists, know how to play, and have memories. The author tells us so much information about octopuses, i.e., their life span is between 3 to 4 years.In order to observe octopuses in their natural settings in the ocean, the author took scuba diving lessons and did just that in the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico. Scuba diving was not easy for her and she tells us about her many difficulties. However, she never gave up trying and experienced some wonderful underwater adventures.There were times when I though I was reading science fiction, but this was for real. What an enlightening glimpse into the intelligence and consciousness of octopuses.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed this memoir of the author's experiences with octopuses. She has an engaging style and seamlessly blends descriptions of her own experiences with explanations of current scientific research and understanding.Oddly enough, the main thing that bothered me wasn't the author's tendency to anthropomorphize the octopuses she interacted with, but her tendency to write as though she could read the minds of the other people she encountered. E.g., after a conversation at the aquarium with a group of teenage girls, the author writes "They don't want to know how Octavia is different from us. They want to know how we're the same. ... This brief encounter has changed them. Now they can identify with an octopus." Or, you know, maybe it was just one conversation among many. (Not every octopus-related interaction has to be life changing!)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A surprising exploration indeed. This book was less about the wonder into the consciousness of octopuses and more about the author's selfish need for rare experience. This book details the lives of several wild-caught octopuses who were forced to spend the remainder of their lives in an aquarium exhibit. The few stories that elude to these creatures' high level of consciousness and intelligence, intersperced with stories of experimental torture, are nothing more than footnotes to the author's emotional context and novelty in experience the physical and aesthetic nature of the captive being. Well written. Highly offense. Animals are not for entertainment.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Soul of an Octopus is a marvelous insight into the intelligence and compassion of an animal often thought to be one of the most alien on our planet. The author chronicles their friendships with several octopuses, each with distinct personalities, and the community which formed around them. Interspersed with these personal anecdotes are many educational facts about the species, as well as accounts of excursions to study octopuses in the wild. This book will give you Emotions, warm your heart, and make you think carefully about what consciousness and sentience really mean.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    All the material about the octopuses and the New England Aquarium was presented well and was absorbing. Her descriptions of the people she meets and interacts with are somewhat less so, and her speculations on souls, human or otherwise, just added verbage.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is such a wonderful book. Sy Montgemery introduces us to the octopuses Kali. Karma, and Octavia she came to befriend at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts. She also takes us along with her on diving expeditions to look for octopuses in their natural, wild habitat. Sy Montgomery's ability to communicate her love of octopuses and to explain what sentient creatures these Cephalopods are was both fascinating and amazing. I'm very much looking forward to my next trip to an aquarium where I can give an octopus much more of my attention.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If you had told me I would love a book written about an octopus, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. This nonfiction account of one woman’s exploration of aquariums, scuba diving and those intelligent creatures was completely captivating! “To share such a moment of deep tranquility with another being, especially one as different from us as the octopus, is a humbling privilege.”“Since meeting Athena, since coming to know Octavia and now Kali, each time I’ve reached into the tanks where we have brought these creatures into our world, I’ve longed to enter theirs.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sy Montgomery is a naturalist who has done quite a bit of field research, but this is about time spent observing and interacting with octopuses, mostly in aquariums.This isn't a book about the biology of these sea creatures, but about their consciousness and intelligence. Not long ago, no one with scientific training would have said that octopuses, invertebrates with comparatively short life spans. If you're interested in the biology of octopuses, this isn't the book for you. Montgomery makes passing references to her field research from time to time, but that's all they are--passing references.This is a book about trying to understand how octopuses see the world, themselves, and us. She spends time, mostly at the New England Aquarium, observing and interesting with a series of octopuses--Athena, Octavia, Kali, and Karma. They each have different personalities, and interact differently with the people they meet, including Montgomery and the aquarium staff.As she interacts with the individual octopuses over the years, Montgomery tries to develop a better understanding of how the octopuses see the world. It's clear that they recognize individual humans, respond differently to them, and remember events. Yet octopus brains are organized very differently than ours, and a good deal of information processing goes on in their arms. They taste with their whole skin, and this is where they get a great deal of their information about the world around them. How does this affect how they view the world?Montgomery also recounts her training to become a diver so she can experience, if not the world as the octopuses see it, at least the world they live in, and some expeditions to study octopuses in the wild.It's a fascinating, enjoyable book.I borrowed this audiobook via Scribd.