Moose

Description

Moose explains the animal's behaviour, evolution and diet, and describes its natural environments around the world, including in the USA, Canada and Scandinavia, where the moose is the national animal of Sweden and of Norway. Jackson considers why the moose is really an elk and an elk is a wapiti, and he also discusses the controversy behind the naming of the Irish Elk.

Kevin Jackson is the author of many books, including, most recently, The Pataphysical Flook (2007), The Book of Hours (2007), and Lawrence of Arabia (2007).

In this whimsical, witty and very entertaining survey of the moose, Kevin Jackson shows how this large, ungainly herbivore has been used for food, sport and entertainment by successive generations of North Americans. The Guardian The moose can boast an impressive array of accomplishments. In this entertaining survey of the animal's place in history and culture, we learn that it provided Chipewyan tribes with "parchment, leather, lines and cords ... thread and glue ... handles ... spoons ... tools ... gowns, firebags, mittens, moccasins, and trousers". All this and food. Independent on Sunday an affectionate portrait of a little studied, oft-derided animal ... Kevin Jackson avoids the tendency to cram in too much; for him, the moose has always been a totem, and this affinity affords him ease with his ungainly yet beguiling subject. TLS