Great news! Tall Poppy Sy Montgomery has been nominated for a National Book Award for her latest book, The Soul of an Octopus. WOW!
Here’s a clip from the blog post over on the National Book Award Foundation page:
National Book Foundation: In the process of writing your book, what did you discover, what, if anything, surprised you?
Montgomery: In the process of writing this book, I was surprised at every turn: that octopuses taste with their skin. That most of their neurons are not in the brains, but in their arms. That their touch–one that many naturalists I admire found repulsive–was so soft, and that their suckers–dextrous enough to untie knots in surgical silk, and strong enough that just one sucker might lift 30 pounds–were capable of great tenderness. But what surprised me most was that a creature so unlike us was clearly capable of forming bonds with humans, and that my relationships with each individual octopus changed forever the way I understand what it means to think, to feel and to know.
