Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs

Sue Hubbell

Random House, 1993 - Insects - 276 pages

Did you know that for every pound of human beings in the world there are estimated to be three hundred pounds of bugs? That 25 percent of all animal species are beetles? That dragonflies can fly sixty miles per hour? That there may be fifty million midges in a single swarm? Whether or not you are curious about insects, Broadsides from the Other Orders is a bewitching mixture of facts of nature and perceptive reflections. The author of A Country Year and A Book of Bees now turns her attention to butterflies, midges and gnats, ladybugs, daddy longlegs, black flies, so-called killer bees, water striders, silverfish, katydids, dragonflies, gypsy moths, syrphid flies, and camel crickets. Aside from the fact that among themselves entomologists call all of them bugs, these insects have little in common; each is unique, plays a distinct role in its own ecosystem, and is as interesting to read about as is the most complex human being. A poll once revealed that 90 percent of all Americans profess to hate bugs, but Sue Hubbell writes with such wonder, affection, authority, and wit about these tiny creatures that any reader of this book will become absorbed by them as well. Her enchantment with them, and with the scientists who study them, some of whom we meet here, is further evidence that, in the words of The New York Times Book Review, "the real masterwork that Sue Hubbell has created is her life".

What people are saying

BROADSIDES FROM THE OTHER ORDERS: A Book of Bugs

User Review  - Kirkus

More delightful nature writing from the author of A Book of Bees (1988) and A Country Year (1986). This time, Hubbell pulls off a tour de force, managing to turn those horrid creatures—bugs—into ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - mldg - LibraryThing

This is my favorite of Sue Hubbell's books. Anyone interested in the lives of insects from a layperson's point of view will enjoy it. Each chapter covers a different insect: dragonflies, crickets, moths, and more.

Contents

• Butterflies: 3
• CHAPTER II: 21
• CHAPTER III: 38

About the author

Sue Hubbell was born Suzanne Gilbert in Kalamazoo, Michigan on January 28, 1935. She received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California in 1956 and a master's degree in library science from Drexel University in 1965. She worked as a librarian at Trenton State College and as a periodicals librarian at Brown University. In 1972, she and her first husband moved to a farm in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and took up beekeeping. To supplement the income from honey sales, she wrote freelance articles for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. After they divorced, she continued to run the large beekeeping operation. She also wrote several books including A Country Year: Living the Questions, A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them, Far-Flung Hubbell: Essays from the American Road, and Waiting for Aphrodite: Journeys Into the Time Before Bones. She suffered from dementia and decided to stop eating and drinking on September 9, 2018 because she did not want to eventually be placed under indefinite institutional care. She died on October 13, 2018 at the age of 83.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs
• Author: Sue Hubbell
• Publisher: Random House, 1993
• Original from: the University of Virginia
• Digitized: Sep 11, 2008
• ISBN: 0679400621, 9780679400622
• Length: 276 pages