Berkeley Arts & Letters presents Mary Roach with Zach Weinersmith / Launch for Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Booksmith and Berkeley Arts & Letters are thrilled to host the virtual launch for the inimitable Mary Roach and her new book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. She’ll be in conversation with Zach Weinersmith, creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and author of the NYT bestselling popular science book, Soonish.

Please note:

• This is a ticketed event. Each ticket includes admission to the event, a **signed** hardcover copy of the book and complimentary postage anywhere in the US.
• Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
• If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to contact us: events@booksmith.com.
• You can order additional copies of Fuzz here; Mary’s other books here.
• Order copies of Soonish here.

About the book

Join “America’s funniest science writer” (Peter Carlson, Washington Post), Mary Roach, on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet.

What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.

Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and “danger tree” faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to “problem” wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.

About the authors

Mary Roach is the author of six best-selling works of nonfiction, including Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, and, most recently, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. Her writing has appeared in Outside, National Geographic, and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications.

Zach Weinersmith is the creator of the popular webcomic SMBC, the creator of the nerd comedy show BAHFest, and the co-author of the New York Times bestselling popular science book, Soonish.

Please note: This is a ticketed, all-ages event. Each ticket includes a copy of Fuzz – no exceptions. If you already have a copy, remember that books make great gifts! If you’ve already gifted this title to all of your friends, please write events@booksmith.com and we’ll work things out.