Robert M. Sapolsky: A Primate's Memoir

By MARGIE THOMSON

"I joined the baboon troop during my 21st year. I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla," writes Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, at the beginning of this funny, learned account of his decades of involvement with a Kenyan baboon troop.

Fascinated from childhood by the African dioramas in the New York Museum of Natural History, he headed to Africa as soon as he could to research the behaviour and physiology of baboons.

Alone in the Serengeti with no mod cons, and the Masai for company, he became emotionally involved with his subjects to a quite charming degree, and had many experiences - frightening, funny, poignant - with the humans he encountered. Sapolsky is an acute observer and a fantastic storyteller, and his book, newly in paperback, will reach far outside the scientific community.

Vintage
$29.95