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Books on Wooden House:
Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo

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In 2005 Kate Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. Her camping equipment was rudimentary, her knowledge of Congolese customs even more so. She knew how to string a net and set a pitfall trap, but she never imagined the physical and cultural difficulties that awaited her.

Culled from the mud-spattered pages of her journals, Mean and Lowly Things reads like a fast-paced adventure story. It is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis—coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest.

The reptile fauna of the Republic of Congo was all but undescribed, and Jackson’s mission was to carry out the most basic study of the amphibians and reptiles of the swamp forest: to create a simple list of the species that exist there—a crucial first step toward efforts to protect them. When the snakes evaded her carefully set traps, Jackson enlisted people from the villages to bring her specimens. She trained her guide to tag frogs and skinks and to fix them in formalin. As her expensive camera rusted and her Western soap melted, Jackson learned what it took to swim with the snakes—and that there’s a right way and a wrong way to get a baby cobra out of a bottle.

Inspiring account of field work! -
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R20Q1SO9U4MEZG Hi, this is Joanne, a bioengineering instructor at the University of Illinois. I read science books and review them. See more at my youtube site http://www.youtube.com/user/joannelovesscience

After reminding us that little boys can just be horrors to helpless amphibians, Joanne describes her experience of reading the memoirs of Dr. Kate Jackson as she collects snakes, lizards and frogs in the Congo.

Mystified -
Look it is 1910 again! We can traipse all over the world and do whatever we want in the name of "science."
The book is poorly written, clearly the author spends most of her time writing papers for academic journals, lacks consistency and any sense of flow. Furthermore, completely out of left field, what was with the love story right in the middle of it all?
Ultimately, and this was what really got to me, I just couldn't get past the ethical implications of what she was up to, and since there was no explanation of why going to the Congo to kill snakes was worthwhile I was left thinking that this is someone who is so taken with the pursuit of empirical / objective science that she has lost track of the fact that she is destroying that which she apparently loves.
I don't even want to get into her treatment of the locals whom she essentially portrays as a bunch of hapless, childlike morons.

Passion without orotundity -
I stayed up till 4 AM to finish this rational, colloquial, and precise account of the author's own extraordinary passion--a passion for herpetology that lured her to what for most North Americans would be an intolerably uncomfortable, dangerous, and dicey existence, so as to study the reptiles of two regions in the Congo. Her penchant for understatement helps characterize her, her mind, her resolve, and her ability to instill order into the chaos of tedium and randomness. It enacts the rather uneasy isometric relationship between the strength of her determination and the countervailing imminence of possible death and disaster. The book has the depth it has because of the force of character that informs Jackson as scientist.

Little woman takes on big Jungle and wins.. Must read! -
Look at the cover of this book and you see a photo of a slight girl with dark hair and glasses...and a live snake in her hands.... in front of Lake Ontario. This is the story of Kate Jackson, a young herpetologist (she studies reptiles and amphibians) from Toronto who does her doctoral research in the flooded jungles of the Northern Congo. This woman learned how to do field research by just jumping in and doing her best. Her training (including study at Harvard and the Smithsonian) was mostly academic. She knew just about everything there is to know about the anatomy and physiology of snakes. On the other hand, her experience with camping in the jungle was wanting.
I have spent many years camping with the Boy Scouts. Camping for me is usually an experience in misery...I just want the weekend to end so I can get home and use a real toilet and shower. Multiply my misery by about 100 and you have a good description of what Kate endured for the sake of science. She would allow snakes to bite her in front of a crowd just to prove that it was not venomous. She would be attacked by ants, wasps, and tsetse flies by day and mosquitoes and termites at night. At one point she had the unique experince (for a North American girl) of having maggots growing under her skin. She also managed to land in the middle of a civil war, learn an obscure African language, and become quite adept at tribal politics. All this and she repeatedly reminds the reader that this was heaven for her compared to living in an apartment in Toronto...unbelievable dedication to science...and that is what makes her story so enticing. I raced through this one. Kate has a knack for telling it like it is. She does not pull any punches. The result is that her experience becomes your experience. This is a must read for anyone who already understands the motivation for scientific study as well as those who just don't get it. Kate may make you get it.

A Fascinating Adventure Book -
If you like stores of adventure and interested in Africa, this is the best book for you.

Kate Jackson is really "wired" as she labeled herself in the book. A young woman grown up in Canada adventured to the remote Congo tribes to collect "mean and lowly things" for science research. She slept on the bumpy forest floor with all kinds of insects around; bitten by snakes; drank boiled brown colored forest water for weeks and much more that you can find in the book. Just because of that we will have the opportunity to go with her into the wildness of the African jungles where newly created trails will be covered with new growth in days, people drink rain water all year long and you open your eyes just as they are closed at night ... and also you will meet the interesting people who live there ...

Her professionalism showed in this book should be an example for all of us, also her passion for the things she loves.