Eager – A Book Review

This book came to my attention because Ben Goldfarb was speaking somewhere in the area, about beavers. It sounded interesting, but I was unable to attend, so asked my local library to get this book through interlibrary loan. Thank you, wonderful librarians! Because this book was well worth reading. I had thought it would be a good bedtime book, easy to put aside – but I was wrong. I whizzed through it in one sitting, with a break for food; it is an excellent read, informative, thoughtful, and with a subtle sense of humor. If you aren’t sure where beavers fit in to the natural world – and the less natural one of built spaces – this book will tell you. Its scope ranges across the United States, and into the British Isles. There are stories of reintroduction and survival, engineering and beaver family life. My husband was not a fan of beaver – the beaver swamp across the street threatened to flood his basement – but if he had read this book, I suspect he would have come away with a more nuanced view.