In an interview on Favourite Science Books

Next up is Elisabeth Bailey’s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, which is actually autobiographical.

This is the autobiographical story of a woman who gets ill with a mysterious virus that totally incapacitates her for years. Somebody brings her a violet in a pot which has a snail on it, and she becomes fascinated with this snail. And she starts to learn everything about snails, which are not what you would have as the usual household pet. It is an engaging story of snails, which is surprising. This is also an example of a book that you would want to have in your library, because it is such a handsome book and nicely illustrated. It is a beautiful little book which is written with a real gentleness and is very enjoyable to read.

It is almost like a meditation on life.

By starting with something so small and seemingly so simple, it gives you this great understanding. Darwin made the point that the beauty of evolution is that so much springs from things that are so simple.

She ends up looking after these snails and studying them. At one stage the snail lays eggs, and she thinks she may be the only person to have ever recorded observations of a snail tending to its eggs.

Yes, and then at the end she releases them into the wild. Most of us certainly don’t watch snails that closely. However there was a big storm this summer, and after the storm my 11-year-old daughter discovered all these snails on her door stoop, and she became fascinated with them. I haven’t told her anything about this book but perhaps she should read it.