Housemates
Publisher: Atlas Contact
Insects in and around our homes
The lives and adventures of myriads of secret roomies
You live with many more creatures than you think. Hundreds of animals scurry, fly and run in and around your home, during all seasons. They are small and usually keep themselves hidden, as discovery often forces insects to pay with death. Yet they are fascinating to those who look closely. Bouma does just that.
With humor and great knowledge, Bouma takes you to nooks and crannies in the attic, to pots of herbs in the kitchen and the stones and earth in your garden. There she shows social cockroaches and caring earwigs, optimistic bumblebees and bizarre tang wasps pass by, she points out help from unexpected quarters from moth flies and it becomes clear why that one bedbug or lemonade wasp ruins it for the whole group. Housemates changes your view of the unjustly unpopular insects forever.
Praise:
‘After reading Bouma’s book, you get the urge to open your doors wide to all those fascinating housemates – let them stay, room enough! And it is precisely this connectedness that we need in order to tackle the insect crisis. If we feel enough positive emotions for these special animals, reason should hopefully follow.’ – NRC Handelsblad
‘In Housemates, Aglaia Bouma opens our eyes to the tiny creatures in our immediate environment. (…) Bouma’s light, humorous tone is a breath of fresh air in the doom and gloom that hangs over this subject.’ – de Volkskrant
