Book Review: Bonobo Handshake
Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo by Vanessa Woods
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked this book up because I wanted to learn more about bonobos after reading Sara Gruen’s Ape House. Bonobo Handshake is a memoir about the author’s time in Congo working at a bonobo sanctuary. Like chimps and humans, bonobos and humans share almost 99 percent of their DNA – yet hardly anyone has even heard of a bonobo.
Bonobos are wonderful, gentle, intelligent creatures and it was fascinating to learn more about them in this book. The author didn’t know much about them before coming the sanctuary either so she takes the reader through her journey of becoming acquainted with and eventually falling in love with these amazing animals.
There is also a fair amount of the political history of Congo throughout the book, of which I was woefully ignorant. Bonobos are hunted for their meat in Congo (even though it’s technically illegal) and what happens to their species depends in a lot of ways on the condition of the country – if food is scarce due to war or other reasons, bonobos are hunted more and more.
This was great book on its own merits and even more fun to read after having read Ape House. It showed me that Gruen’s book was very well researched and an accurate depiction of how bonobos act. I highly recommend this book to fans of Ape House and animal lovers in general.
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