The Compleat Cockroach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Despised ( and Least Understood) Creature on Earth

by David George Gordon

Book Overview

An exhaustive and irreverent look at our scuttling friends from a popular environmental writer, this book showcases cockroachabilia from throughout history to the Raid Entomology Research Lab in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0898158532
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

An excellent comprehensive guide...from the educational point of view!

Recently, I conducted a spring cleaning of my personal library & found a number of interesting books (some seemingly trivia, some really nonesensical) which I have totally forgotten about. This is one of those books, seemingly trivial in content & yet educational in scope. Here, from this one amazing volume, I did not realise that I could learn so much about what I have always considered to be Planet Earth's most hated creature! The author, a biologist by training, thinks otherwise & sets out to change my belief. According to him, cockroaches are intelligent, hard-working, & well-groomed (Can you believe that?), as well as being one of the oldest & most successful beings on Planet Earth (340 millions old, & able to withstand a nuclear blast!). I have even learned from the author that they have made appearances on the Apollo XII command vehicle. This book really tells it all: - the life history of the cockroach, including what they eat (just about anything), where they live (everywhere from tropical cabes to microwave ovens), & the steamy details of their sex lives (antenna fencing, anyone?); - cockroaches in human culture - from La Cucaracha to Joe's Apartment (the song & dance routines), & even cuisine (they are three times as protein rich as chicken & taste like shrimp (Can you believe that?); - home cockroach control - what works, what doesn't, & why; & much, much more... Since young, I have always been fascinated by nature history as I grew up in a 'kampong' (a local term for village) on the southern end of the Malaysian peninsula, heavily surrounded by forests and grasslands. [In the 1950's, these were the battlegrounds of the communist insurgents during British Crown rule]. I recall it was the subtitle of the book, which goes like this 'Step into a World That Until Now You've Only Stepped on' that finally sealed my decision to buy the book during the mid-90s. I really enjoy reading this book again! On the whole, & in conclusion, I would like to rate this book to be an excellent comprehensive guide!

Terrific for Research as well as Light Reading

I thought this book was TERRIFIC! It was alot of fun to read. The style was casule and informative. Read it, you'll learn all you ever need to know about cockroaches. Funny, fast paced, great for a report.

Horrible little beasts, by fermed

It takes a combination of strength of character, sheer curiosity and a touch of madness to spend hard earned dollars on a book devoted to blattaria, which is the family name of cockroaches. Most people have an absolute and total abhorrence towards these little beasties: they believe that no cockroach, not even a dead cockroad, can possibly be a good cockroach.Once the initial repulsion to the book and its title has been overcome, it does not mean one is going to love the critters, or even tolerate them in one's life space; but a reluctant amazement about these complex and bizarre creatures is likely to develop. If one's only interest on the subject is how to be rid of them, this book reviews the history of the attempts to exterminate them and the modern methods now in use. But perhaps you would like to become a collector, or a breeder...no? Well, if you change your mind you will find the addresses of others interested in catching, swapping or breeding the insects. Reading the 170 odd pages of this book will not make you a scientific expert on blattaria, but it pretty well guarantees that you will not be lost for words at the next cocktail party. If the subject of cockroaches happens to come up.The book contains a good index, a section on cockroach supplies and resources (food, rubber cockroaches, museums of cockroaches) and a 5 book non-fiction bibliography.The book's title reflects precisely its contents, and for that reason, as well as the other attributes mentioned, it earns my five stars.

A good psychological book for people, who dislike cockroache

This book is very fantastic. All about history,species, humor, songs,art, museums etc. It describes the cockroaches so clearely and exact, that you are never afraid of them! I was shocked by the first big American Cockroaches on the Azores, where I am regulary for holidays. I bought this book for psychological therapy at my own. I was impressed by the humorfully title. It is only a pity, that there are only small black and white photos on it. If you want to understand "uggly" animals by a book of them to understand them more.

Foe or friend? Maybe the cockroach will inherit the earth.

We are out numbered. For every one of us, there are 10 of them. The subject is cockroaches -- blattaria -- la cucaracha. Instead of screaming and running for a can of Raid, consider reading biologist David George Gordon's extremely entertaining, sometimes humorous and definitely fascinating work "The Compleat Cockroach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Despised (and Least Understood) Creature on Earth. He prophetically invites readers to "step into a world that, until now, you've only stepped on," and then delivers page after page of facts on cockroach anatomy, behavior, speciation, control, culture as well as the creature's influences on rock music, literature, film and fine art. Gordon offers insight into the numerous unique adaptations that have allowed these animals to survive for more than 340 million years, with his whimsical writing being a nice plus. One might wonder just how unusual of a fellow the author is, for he previously penned "Field Guide to the Slug." If the sight of Never mind that the sight of a roach crawling across a kitchen floor mades most people nauseated. There's more to the pest than one would imagine. Cockroaches, when eaten, have a falvor similar to shrimp. They are very vain beings, continuously licking their legs and antennae to beautify themselves, in a manner very similar to a cat washing its paws. They are far less finicky than cats about eating, however, consuming everything from paper, woolen clothes, sugar, flesh and lemons to bottle corks, bat guano, oil, cheese and their own shed skins. The battle against the cockroach will be eternal, since adult females produce up to 30 young, usually in November. Adult males commonly cohabit with adolescent females, waiting patiently, the author claims, for the young virgins to mature. But after mating, the male, being the traditional cad, leaves the burrow in search of a new partner. Most notably, the cockroach is probaly the only insect with its own anthem, the familiary "La Cucaracha," which was penned in 1910 by the followers of Francisco "Pancho" Villa at the start of the Mexican Revolution. The word cucaracha, however, pertains to the slang definition of "dried up old maid," which was also the nickname of Villa's rival, General Venusitano Carranza. By the last chapter, the reader may have a modified opinion of the much dreaded cockroach. This reader will think twice before calling the exterminator.