Rating: 
Summary: It's a memoir.
Review: Very disappointed; I feel I wasted my money and time. I purchased the book based on a piece on NPR. I guess I misunderstood. I was looking for something more informative, educational and with much more about the babooons. Probably partly my fault. I should have known from the title; it's a memoir. I didn't do a page count, but it left me with the feeling that pages dedicated to life with the baboons were in the minority. It wasn't entertaining, interesting, or well-written enough to be a good novel. It wasn't educational or informational enough to be good non-fiction. There are great books, both fiction and non, about life experiences in Africa and also great books by/about primatologists and their work. In my opinion, this book isn't very good as either. Even as a memoir I didn't care for it, but it seems that most of the other reviewers did. The book jacket artwork is very nice.
Rating: 
Summary: Gets my vote for best nonfiction of the year
Review: When a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" decides to write about his work for the general public, it's a good idea to pay attention, especially when the author already has a reputation for being as entertaining a storyteller as neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky. This book could not be improved upon. Part travel adventure, part coming of age story of a young scientist, and part life among the baboons, A Primate's Memoir tells what happens as the author travels to Kenya at age 21 to study how the social rank of baboons winds up affecting their physiological stress levels. Sapolsky readily describes himself in primate terms "young transfer male" as he recounts his hilarious, poignant and truly harrowing encounters with the world around him, sharing his candid reactions to some pretty novel events. In the course of this book he does achieve "full adult status" and circumstances grow more serious. You just have to read it yourself as examples could not convey the genuine humanity and originality of his overall experience. How does social status affect one's stress levels? He gives a bit of the answer in this book, but if you want to know more about the science of stress, still told very much in layperson's terms, read The Trouble with Testosterone, (thought provoking and hilarious) or the more fact-filled (if potentially anxiety-arousing), Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers. These books could affect how you perceive the world
Rating:
Summary: Are baboons almost human?
Review: You follow the author and his group of 60 baboons over time and you can see the parallels. The leaders of the group all have biblical names, and we get to know them quite well, following their peccadillos from year to year. By the end we know a lot about baboons, without having been subjected to a lot of academic finetuning. But the main part of the book deals with the young scientist and his never ending curiosity about the world around him. We get intimate glances at the Masai and the Kikuiu tribes, whom he befriended. We go with him to Uganda only days after the overthrow of Idi Amin. We look for the mountain gorillas of Ruanda (and get a short lecture on Dian Fossey). And we visit southern Sudan, where nobody in right mind would go. The author never looses his humor, even after getting ripped off time and again, nor when he is made to defecate on the main street of a Sudanese village with the whole population watching, or when a herd of elephants congregates in front of his tent. No matter what hits him, he finds a reason to laugh about it. He is a mensch.
Rating:
Summary: Tears of laughter and heartbreak
Review: You know a book is really good when you shed tears from both laughter and heartbreak. The author, a Stanford professor of biology and neurology and research associate at the Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya, does just that without making you feel that you've been manipulated or set up. A PRIMATE'S MEMOIR is part travelogue, part Jane Goodall-Diane Fossey communion with forest primates, and part field research in neurological behavior-related stress. Underlying all of these is the theme of a young, liberal Jewish boy form the Bronx coming-of-age in post-colonial East Africa. The book is as much about the peoples of Africa and contemporary cultural shifts as it is about his troop of baboons on the edge of the Serengeti. Sapolsky is a natural story teller, the humorous ones told most often at his own expense. And even his behavioral observations and research findings are discussed as if the two of you are shooting the breeze over a pint of Guinness. Where most field biologists avoid anything remotely anthropomorphic, Saplosky is so comfortable with himself as a scientist that he uses the best words he can muster to communicate to the reader whether they'd be approved by some learned academic committee or not. His language, befitting the bar where you and the author are downing pint after pint, is more Hemingway than scholarly. Don't confuse Sapolsky's informality and naming-rather-than-numbering-his-study-subjects attitude as a sign that he is something less than a fully dedicated scientist. He makes this distinction perfectly clear in a chapter about Dianne Fossey, who in addition to being a substandard scientist in the author's opinion, was a threat to her own beloved apes. The low rating from the hand-full of animal lovers who submitted reviews is the only the reason that the overall rating for this book is 4.5 stars instead of a perfect 5.0!
Rating:
Summary: Tears of laughter and heartbreak
Review: You know a book is really good when you shed tears from both laughter and heartbreak. The author, a Stanford professor of biology and neurology and research associate at the Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya, does just that without making you feel that you've been manipulated or set up. A PRIMATE'S MEMOIR is part travelogue, part Jane Goodall-Diane Fossey communion with forest primates, and part field research in neurological behavior-related stress. Underlying all of these is the theme of a young, liberal Jewish boy form the Bronx coming-of-age in post-colonial East Africa. The book is as much about the peoples of Africa and contemporary cultural shifts as it is about his troop of baboons on the edge of the Serengeti. Sapolsky is a natural story teller, the humorous ones told most often at his own expense. And even his behavioral observations and research findings are discussed as if the two of you are shooting the breeze over a pint of Guinness. Where most field biologists avoid anything remotely anthropomorphic, Saplosky is so comfortable with himself as a scientist that he uses the best words he can muster to communicate to the reader whether they'd be approved by some learned academic committee or not. His language, befitting the bar where you and the author are downing pint after pint, is more Hemingway than scholarly. Don't confuse Sapolsky's informality and naming-rather-than-numbering-his-study-subjects attitude as a sign that he is something less than a fully dedicated scientist. He makes this distinction perfectly clear in a chapter about Dianne Fossey, who in addition to being a substandard scientist in the author's opinion, was a threat to her own beloved apes. The low rating from the hand-full of animal lovers who submitted reviews is the only the reason that the overall rating for this book is 4.5 stars instead of a perfect 5.0!
Rating:
Summary: If you have ever travelled to Africa....
Review: you will find this book hilariously funny. It is full of anecdotes that can't possibly be true, but if you have travelled to Africa, you know they are nothing but the truth. This novel is written clearly and descriptively, drawing the audience into the authors encampment. It is the type of novel to keep and read over and over.
Rating:
Summary: If you have ever travelled to Africa....
Review: you will find this book hilariously funny. It is full of anecdotes that can't possibly be true, but if you have travelled to Africa, you know they are nothing but the truth. This novel is written clearly and descriptively, drawing the audience into the authors encampment. It is the type of novel to keep and read over and over.
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