The Cockroach Papers: A Compendium of History and Lore Book

This was so fascinating I could not put it down. Actually, I put it down only to go make dinner--and naturally had a false roach sighting, an oblong lint ball near the laundry rack--then quickly finished it. The book includes memoir, science, history, and culture, all loosely braided together by the theme of cockroaches. I especially liked learning about the American cockroach in Southern African-American folklore, where it was a Trickster figure (the bug arrived on slave ships and is slyly adaptable and resourceful, besides being disruptive by the mere fact of its existence), and also about a Harvard professor who gives the author the unwanted gift of a Tupperware full of Madagascar hissing cockroaches (eek).