Best Of: How Octopuses Upend What We Know About Ourselves
b'I\\u2019ve been on an octopus kick for a little while now. In that, I don\\u2019t seem to be alone. Octopuses (it\\u2019s incorrect to say \\u201coctopi,\\u201d to my despair) are having a moment: There are award-winning books, documentaries and even science fiction about them. I suspect it\\u2019s the same hunger that leaves many of us yearning to know aliens: How do radically different minds work? What is it like to be a truly different being living in a similar world? The flying objects above remain unidentified. But the incomprehensible objects below do not. We are starting to be smart enough to ask the question: How smart are octopuses? And what are their lives like?\\n\\nSy Montgomery is a naturalist and the author of dozens of books on animals. In 2015 she published the dazzling book \\u201cThe Soul of an Octopus,\\u201d which became a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction. It\\u2019s an investigation not only into the lives and minds of octopuses but also into the relationships they can and do have with human beings.\\n\\nThis was one of those conversations that are hard to describe, but it was a joy to have. Montgomery writes and speaks with an appropriate sense of wonder about the world around us and the other animals that inhabit it. This is a conversation about octopuses, of course, but it\\u2019s also about us: our minds, our relationship with the natural world, what we see and what we\\u2019ve learned to stop seeing. It will leave you looking at the water \\u2014 and maybe at yourself \\u2014 differently.\\n\\nBook recommendations: \\n\\nThe Outermost House by Henry Beston\\n\\nThe Old Way by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas\\n\\nKing Solomon\'s Ring by Konrad Lorenz\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.'