Reading & Conversation: "Grizzled" by Jason Bittel

We are ecstatic to celebrate local author, Jason Bittel, and his new book: Grizzled: Love Letters to 50 of North America's Least Understood Animals!

Funny, fascinating, and scientifically grounded, this charming book reveals unknown details about 50 well-known animals.

Effortlessly readable, Grizzled reintroduces nature lovers to species they thought they knew all about.

From fireflies and hummingbirds to alligators and sharks, this collection of 50 brief essays combines witty prose and vivid illustrations to reveal the secret lives and oddball behaviors of North American creatures both familiar and little known.

In Grizzled, science journalist Jason Bittel taps into current research about the behavior of key North American mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, from insects to urchins. Along the way, he answers questions you didn’t know to ask, such as:

• How do monarch butterflies emerge from sentient goo?
• Why did beavers have to parachute into their newest habitats?
• What’s inside a yellowjacket meatball? How many jellyfish can a sea turtle eat?
• Can deer really grow antlers on their legs?
• Grizzled offers a surprising, endearing, and altogether eye-opening tour of the animal kingdom—one you won’t soon forget.

JASON BITTEL is a wild animal most closely related to chimpanzees and bonobos. He is also a seasoned science journalist, National Geographic Explorer, and former project fellow at the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One time, he spent a season trapping invasive wild boar for the National Park Service. Bittel has written about science and animals for adult readers at National Geographic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Popular Science, and New Scientist Magazine, among many other publications. He’s also the author of four science books for kids: Mountain: Go on a Grand Tour of the Highest Places on Earth (2024), The Frozen Worlds: The Astonishing Nature of the Arctic and Antarctic (2023), Animals Lost and Found: Stories of Extinction, Conservation, and Survival (2022), and How to Talk to a Tiger…and Other Animals: How Critters Communicate in the Wild (2021). When he isn’t professing his love for cockroaches or sniffing sloth turds, Bittel is probably howling at the moon with his wife and three kiddos in the woods outside of Pittsburgh. There’s a good chance he’s nursing a bad case of poison ivy even as we speak. He also loves to cook and makes a mean cicada scampi, but the next batch won’t be ready until 2036. To keep up with Bittel’s writings and adventures, go to: www.bittelmethis.com

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