Note: There’s going to be a lot of “this book does this thing kind of poorly… but it does have a redeeming feature to buoy it back up!” I really wouldn’t write about it if it was so mediocre – I don’t have that much time – and if it was outright horrible, you’ll see no trace of it from me here, because I prefer to showcase examples I consider interesting and well-written in whatever topic it is that the material is about. Now, onto Poison!

I picked this one up while refilling a display around the library (after reading this book, you might think twice before nonchalantly picking up something small like this book with black and red colouration) – proof that our displays are working marvelously, as I took home about 3 or 4 other items about ocean critters that day – and was thinking it’d be a great follow-up to Venomous by Christie Wilcox. Alas, Poison: Sinister Species with Deadly Consequences is actually rather less informative, though perhaps I should have gathered as much by the size of the book and the overall feel of it. I say it is less informative only because it strives less to provide a comprehensive introduction to poisonous animals, than to introduce readers interested in the like to various insects, animals, and other creatures that can pack a punch if you get on their bad side – the great thing about this list for me personally was that I didn’t know about many of the animals introduced here: who knew there were poisonous birds?

One of the most charming parts of Poison, I think, lie in its illustrations – and what gorgeous illustrations they are! Each heading only gives you one, so it can get a bit confusing when Siddall throws a heap of other names of critters at you and you have to flip back a bit to see which is which. That being said, on the whole, the layout of the book and placement of the drawings, including the choice of repetition as it suited the pages, struck me as quite well done.

The writing also makes the trek through this book quite fun, though I can’t help but feel like Siddall tries a bit too hard to nail the tone that comes across as “unofficial guidebook to an assortment of dangerous oddities around the world”, with the consequent constant alliteration (see what I did there?) occasionally being obviously a stretch, and the cheeky comments sometimes getting so cheeky as to be hard to grasp where exactly the cheek is at all: you know Siddall is being tongue-in-cheek, but you have to figure out how. There are times when he is wildly successful, causing me to laugh outright, as when he discusses the frequency of stingray stabbings through the heart (I agree: it’s not funny, but the way Siddall says it sort of is!):

It should be noted that these “rare,” “unusual,” and “freak” accidents have not, heretofore, been taken as evidence that stingrays are capable of something strategic – like aim?

As for the content, Siddall does deliver on the anecdotes promised at the intro, though he doesn’t tell you the full story sometimes, which can be incredibly frustrating! By way of example, there’s this one story about a certain Budden, a snake enthusiast who went out to catch a taipan alive and well in order so that antivenom could be manufactured from it; Siddall tells you that Budden gave his life for the cause, catching the taipan, getting bitten by it after he got increasingly tired of holding onto it with both hands (because there was no third hand to help him bag the snake), then heroically bagging the snake before he died at hospital because – why else? – there was not yet an antivenom for the taipan bite. A touching tale… except Siddall neglects to tell the reader, now hanging on to their seats by their toes, whether or not the taipan Budden gave his life to capture was the taipan that helped create the first taipan antivenom, or whether his actions helped save other lives! It seems to me a bit of an oversight.

On the whole though, Poison is a delightful volume, especially if you’re not looking for something too in-depth and just want to browse a small compendium of Sinister Species with Deadly Consequences, so it’s right up there on the list of my recommended reads, just under Venomous.