Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

A huge disappointment:

Since moving to New York City 10 years ago, I have been as fascinated with rats as Robert Sullivan. Well, maybe not fascinated enough to sit with them each night for a year, but if I'd known him personally during his research phase, I would have been one of the people he describes who begged to go observing rats with him in Eden's Alley.

When I saw the ad for this book appear in the New Yorker magazine, I immediately ordered it from Amazon. Impatiently waiting for it to arrive, I read the first chapter... more info

Ratting in New York City:

Rats. Most people stay clear from these nocturnal creatures that creep around city alleys eating garbage, most people that is except Robert Sullivan who has dedicated a year studying the Rattus norvegicus, or the brown rat, in New York City. In an attempt to find out more about these mammals that live in such close proximity to urban dwellers he embarks on a journey to unravel the mystery of the brown rat that is often escaping extermination by humans. Scouting out potential alleys to study in Manhattan he... more info

rats! they fought the dogs and killed the cats:

This is not just a book about rats, but a book about exterminators, about diseases spread by rats and fleas, and about the history of New York City and some of its colorful characters, and even about the American Revolution. It's a fascinating account of the author's project, inspired by an Audubon painting, to study rats in an alley near the World Trade Center, and how that project led him to learn about that alley, the hill it stands on, the surrounding buildings and the people who lived and worked there,... more info

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