Alex and Me (Pepperberg) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
In her charming new book, ... Dr. Pepperberg—an associate research professor at Brandeis and a teacher of animal cognition at Harvard—describes her three-decade-long relationship with [the grey parrot] Alex and her struggle to win recognition from the scientific establishment, which was dominated, when she began working with the parrot, by “the behaviorists’ gospel,” which held that “animals are automatons, responding mindlessly to stimuli.” ... Her book movingly combines the scientific detail of a researcher, intent on showing with “statistical confidence” that Alex “did indeed have this or that cognitive ability,” with the affectionate understanding that children (and children’s books about animals) instinctively possess: that “animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know.”
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times


This ornery reviewer tried to resist Alex’s charms on principle (the principle that says any author who keeps telling us how remarkable her subject is cannot possibly be right). But his achievements got the better of me. During one training session, Alex repeatedly asked for a nut, a request that Pepperberg refused (work comes first). Finally, Alex looked at her and said, slowly, “Want a nut. Nnn . . . uh . . . tuh.”
Elizabeth Royte - New York Times Book Review


Alex is the African gray parrot whose ability to master a vocabulary of more than 100 words and answer questions about the color, shape and number of objects-garnered wide notice during his life as well as obituaries in worldwide media after his death in September 2007. Pepperberg, who teaches animal cognition, has previously documented the results of her 30-year relationship with Alex in The Alex Studies. While this book inevitably covers some of the same ground, it is a moving tribute that beautifully evokes "the struggles, the initial triumphs, the setbacks, the unexpected and often stunning achievements" during a groundbreaking scientific endeavor spent "uncovering cognitive abilities in Alex that no one believed were possible, and challenging science's deepest assumptions about the origin of human cognitive abilities." Pepperberg deftly interweaves her own personal narrative-including her struggles to gain recognition for her research-with more intimate scenes of life with Alex than she was able to present in her earlier work, creating a story that scientists and laypeople can equally enjoy, if they can all keep from crying over Alex's untimely death.
Publishers Weekly


Pepperberg, an animal cognitive scientist and associate research professor at Brandeis University, made history with her landmark research involving Alex, an African Grey parrot. Her detailed findings based on two decades of research were published in 1999 in The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots. She was able to prove that African Greys possess cognitive and communicative abilities beyond what scientists had previously believed possible in animals other than humans. After her previous book, Pepperberg had almost another decade of interactions with Alex before his sudden death in September 2007. Her latest is more memoir than research work, focusing on her personal relationship with Alex while introducing lay readers to her extensive research on these remarkable birds. This is a nice companion to Pepperberg's more scientific writings. Recommended for academic and public libraries alike.
Library Journal