The sound of a wild snail eating

25 Apr 2025

I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump and what got me out of it was surprisingly enough a book about a long-term ill person observing a snail.

It’s one of the more strange books I’ve read, but it’s not as strange as it sounds. It’s about being very ill for a long time - but also a lot of interesting details about snails.

If this doesn’t sound too weird to you then I can recommend it. A good, unusual read.

Quotes

”In terms of size, mammals are an anomaly, as the vast majority of the world’s existing animal species are snail sized or smaller. It’s almost as if, regardless of your kingdom, the smaller your size and the earlier your place on the tree of life, the more critical is your niche on earth: snails and worms create soil, and blue-green algae create oxygen; mammals seem comparatively dispensable, the result of the random path of evolution over a luxurious amount of time.”

”As the winter months passed, I noticed a change in my snail-watching behavior. The previous spring, when I could do almost nothing, spending time with a snail had been pure entertainment. But as my functional abilities improved just a bit, watching a snail began to take patience. I wondered at what point in my convalescence I might leave the snail’s world behind.”