Elena Passarello

With exuberant wit, Elena Passarello casts her gaze on famous historical animals, crafting an essay collection organized as medieval bestiary.

Animals Strike Curious Poses

A rollicking, wide-reaching annotated soundtrack of pop stars, phone psychics, Elvis impersonators, and other marvels of the human voice.

Essays

Let Me Clear My Throat

Lo storno di Mozart e altri animali famosi

“It might be the best book on animals I’ve ever read. It's also the only one that's made me laugh out loud.” —Helen Macdonald, The New York Times Book Review Beginning with Yuka, a 39,000-year-old mummified woolly mammoth recently found in the Siberian permafrost, each of the sixteen essays in Animals Strike Curious Poses investigates a different famous animal named and immortalized by humans. Modeled loosely after a medieval bestiary, these witty, playful, whip-smart essays, from a winner of a Whiting Award for nonfiction, traverse history, myth, science, and more, bringing each beast vibrantly to life. “Stunning . . . Passarello’s keen wit is on display throughout as she raises questions about the uniqueness of humans. . . . A feast of surprising juxtapositions and gorgeous prose.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “I’ve spent decades reading books on the roles animals play in human cultures, but none have ever made me think, and feel, as much as this one. It’s a devastating meditation on our relationship to the natural world.” —Helen Macdonald, The New York Times Book Review

De verhalen van zeventien legendarische dieren Dieren spreken zo tot onze verbeelding dat ze doordringen tot de culturele canon. Zoals de tamme spreeuw die Mozart inspireerde tot twee pianoconcerten, de wolf die vriendschap sloot met de heilige Franciscus van Assisi, of Harriet, de reuzenschildpad die Darwin tijdens zijn reis met de Beagle van de Galapagoseilanden meebracht en die daarna nog zo’n 170 jaar zou hebben geleefd. In dit geestige en speelse boek wekt Elena Passarello zeventien legendarische dieren tot leven. Daarbij verweeft ze wetenschap met geschiedenis, mythologie en literatuur, en verbindt ze prikkelende observaties aan meer filosofische vragen over de verhouding tussen mens en dier. Wat zegt het over ons dat we bepaalde dieren op een voetstuk plaatsen en andere niet zien staan?

en andere legendarische dieren

De spreeuw van Mozart

“A remarkably entertaining and thought-provoking look at the human voice and all of its myriad functions and sounds . . . Wonderful” (Library Journal, starred review). From Farinelli, the eighteenth-century castrato who brought down opera houses with his high C, to the recording of Johnny B. Goode affixed to the Voyager spacecraft, Let Me Clear My Throat dissects the whys and hows of popular voices, making them hum with significance and emotion. There are murders of punk rock crows, impressionists, and rebel yells; Howard Dean’s “BYAH!” and Marlon Brando’s “Stellaaaaa!” and a stock film yawp that has made cameos in movies from A Star is Born to Spaceballs. The voice is thought’s incarnating instrument and Elena Passarello’s essays are a riotous deconstruction of the ways the sounds we make both express and shape who we are—the annotated soundtrack of us giving voice to ourselves. “Standout pieces include a biography of the most famous scream in Hollywood history; a breakdown of the relationship between song and birdsong; and an analysis of the sounds of disgust. Akin to: A dinner party at which David Sedaris, Mary Roach and Marlon Brando are trying to out-monologue one another.” —Philadelphia Weekly “The beauty of Ellen Passarello’s voice is that it’s so confidently its own . . . I began randomly with her essay wondering what the space aliens will make of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ on the Voyager gold record and couldn’t stop after that.” —John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

Elena Passarello

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