Book Overview

The subtitle for this book is "How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence—and Formed A Deep Bond in the Process." I think this sums it up pretty well as this book is many things—a memoir of Irene Pepperberg and her work with Alex, an exploration of animal intelligence, and a love story between Alex and Irene.

Irene and Alex worked together for 30 years, and, in the process, shattered ideas about what level of communication animals could achieve. Alex was an African Grey parrot and had a brain the size of a shelled walnut. Yet his work with Irene proved he was capable of complex intellectual feats—such as adding, sounding out words and understanding concepts such as bigger, smaller, more, fewer and none. He demonstrated that birds have a capacity for language that is deeper than simple imitation. He also exhibited a sense of humor, playfulness and seemed capable of emotions. Consider his last words to Irene: "You be good. I love you."

The book begins with some background on Irene Pepperberg's formative years—her lonely childhood, her early experiences with pet birds, her scientific background and her eventual decision to pursue human-animal communication as her life's work. Her work with Alex was ground-breaking and often occurred at great personal expense to both Irene and Alex—both financially and emotionally. For much of her career, Irene had to hustle to find lab space, funding and staff support. Multiple moves to different academic environments characterized her early career until her research began getting recognition and financial support. In fact, much of her research happened only because of Irene's own tireless efforts to raise funds for The Alex Foundation, which supported her work when funding and academic positions were scarce.

The bulk of the book documents Irene's work with Alex—descriptions of his training, first-hand glimpses at his multiple breakthroughs, understandable explanations of linguistics and why what Alex was doing was so remarkable. Throughout her research with Alex, Irene always applied scientific methods and approaches. Conscious of the naysayers who criticized the field of human-animal communication, Irene was careful to avoid being too "close" to Alex—rigorously documenting their training and forcing Alex to repeat tasks again and again to ensure her research was scientifically sound.

Yet when Alex died prematurely at the age of 31, Irene succumbed to grief and allowed herself to feel—perhaps for the first time—the full measure of love she had for Alex. With his death, she finally allowed herself to discard the clinical distance she always attempted to maintain with Alex and feel the full wave of her love, respect and grief for him. With this book, Irene is finally able to present the full story of her work with Alex—not just the scientific aspects but the emotional bonds they shared and developed over their long relationship.

My Thoughts

I first came across the story of Alex when I read his obituary in The Economist Book of Obituaries. Alex was the only non-human in the book (and even made the cover). I was intrigued by his obituary, which talked glowingly of Irene's work with Alex. I then saw reviews of this book on several book blogs and knew I had to read it.

This book was wonderful on so many levels. The writing is clear-eyed and accessible, and the descriptions of the training and breakthroughs are down-to-earth and easily understandable. Yet Irene also manages to provide a loving and affectionate look at Alex himself, who the reader comes to know and love during the course of the book. Irene does a brilliant job of explaining just enough so that non-scientific readers understand what was so remarkable about their research together but balances it out with anecdotal stories that make Alex's personality come alive.

Although the book sometimes covers Irene's personal life, she keeps the focus firmly on her work with Alex. In the course of the book, Irene gets married and eventually divorced, but she doesn't spend too much time on these aspects of her life. Most of the personal information is provided simply as a way to explain how she came to her life's work and some of the personal costs involved in her dedication to her work with Alex. I admire Irene for not delving into self-pity as it is clear that she sacrificed much of her life to her work with Alex. She never comes across as sorry for herself or regretful of the high price she may have paid in her personal life.

The book was a fast and enjoyable read, though I can't imagine any reader coming away without being moved and saddened by Alex's early death. (African Greys typically live up to 60 years.) As I read, I kept marking page after page of passages I particularly liked and wanted to share in my review. Here are just a few of them to give you a feel for Irene's writing and the tone of the book.

*****

He'd answered these kinds of questions dozens of times, and yet we still kept asking them, because we needed our statistical sample. You could imagine him thinking, I've already told you that, stupid or simply, This is getting very boring. He was like the bright little kid at school who finds none of the work challenging and so passes the time by making trouble.

Sometimes, however, Alex chose to show his opinion of the boring task at hand by playing with our heads. For instance, we would ask him, "What color key?" and he would give every color in his repertoire, skipping only the correct color. Eventually, he became quite ingenious with this game, having more fun getting us agitated rather than giving us the answers we wanted and he surely knew. We were pretty certain he wasn't making mistakes, because it was statistically near to impossible that he could list all but the correct answer. These observations are not science, but they tell you a lot about what was going on in his head; they tell you a lot about how sophisticated his cognitive processes really were.

*****

By now I had realized he was just messing with my head. I knew he knew the correct answer. "OK, Alex," I said sternly. "You're just going to have to take a time-out." I took him to his room and closed the door.

"Two...two...two...I'm sorry...come here!" Linda and I immediately heard coming from behind Alex's closed door. "Two...come here...two." Linda and I were laughing to the point of tears.

"I guess Alex is fully himself again," I finally was able to say to Linda. "The little rascal!"

*****

After a local television program that featured Alex, someone sent him a toy parrot, one that played songs when you pushed a button. We suspended it over one side of Alex's table, and he completely ignored it.

After about a week, one day he looked intently at the suspended parrot, walked up to it, and said "You tickle." He then bent his head over toward the toy, the way he would to a student, who would then dutifully tickle Alex's neck. Nothing happened, of course. After a few seconds he looked up at the toy, said "You turkey," and stalked off in a huff. The students sometimes said "You turkey" to Alex when he did dumb things. He had apparently learned how to use that stinging epithet without any training.

My Final Recommendation

This is a charming book that was a delight to read. Not only does it provide insight into human-animal communication and animal intelligence, it is also a deeply felt book about the strong bonds that can develop between animals and humans. In addition, you'll learn a bit about linguistics and the travails of being a research scientist. It is hard for me to imagine anyone who wouldn't enjoy this book at some level. And, if you own a parrot, I think this book would be a must read for you. ( )

Book CoverIn this touching and eye-opening memoir, Irene Pepperberg reflects on the three decades she spent both teaching and bonding with the amazing African Grey Parrot, Alex. Pepperberg, a life-long bird lover, describes Alex's life in great detail, from the nervous first days of Alex's homecoming to the gradual instruction into the cognitive tasks that eventually become his hallmark. Alex is a bird like no other and shows that for a bird with a brain the size of a shelled walnut, being a bird brain is not such a bad thing. In his amazing ability to label objects, his ability to add and his stunning demonstration of expressing the concept of zero, he begins to show the world at large that he is indeed an exceptional animal. This in turn begins to change the way that scientists and the average population view the intelligence and capability of animals in general. Along the way, Alex becomes a cultural icon and a much loved celebrity. But Alex's story is not only filled with his remarkable accomplishments, it is also full of his particular brand of humor and the displays of independence that truly made Alex one of a kind. Both riotously funny and blindingly sad, Alex & Me takes a peek into the life of a truly exceptional bird and the woman who shared and celebrated his life.

I love animal books, so I was really delighted to get a chance to read Alex & Me. I had previously seen Alex and Irene on television and thought that he was a simply amazing bird. But until reading the book, I had no idea just how amazing he was. From the very beginning of the book, the stage was set for Alex to come along and wow me, which he did. But the parts of the book I really enjoyed the most were the parts where Alex shot from the hip and became a comic genius. Like the time he told a very upset Irene to "Calm down," or when, failing to receive a treat after competing a task successfully, he phonetically spells out the name of the treat that he wants. Or the times when he admonishes another bird in the lab to speak more clearly. There were lots of really great moments like that in the book, and as I read it became harder and harder for me to see Alex as just a trained animal and easier for me to see him as a very intelligent and sentient creature of nature.

A lot of the page space in this book was given to describing the experiments that Pepperburg was working on with Alex. I thought this was interesting because it really highlighted the methodology and inventiveness of what Alex was being taught and compared it to the tests that had previously been run by other animal behaviorists. I was also surprised to discover that Alex always surpassed what was expected of him and that he sometimes taught himself new concepts. Though Pepperberg worked with several other birds, and speaks about them in this book, it is clear that Alex was her greatest success and the star of the show.

The book also explores some of the problems that Pepperburg had securing funding and lab space for her work with Alex, and her frequent moves across country in her attempts to find the right place for the continuation of her work. I was particularly fond of her descriptions of her stint at The Lab at MIT, a sort of geeky technological warehouse that hosted a smorgasbord of studies and a host of inventive departments.

Though most of the book was very informative and funny, the first sections deal with Pepperburg's tremendous grief at Alex's unexpected death, which occurred on September 6, 2007, and the huge public outpouring that the announcement of Alex's passing received. I think that it was very clever to start the book off this way, because it immediately drew me into Alex's story and really humanized him for me. It was also astonishing to see how much support flooded in for Pepperberg. Some people even included testimonials about how seeing Alex perform his wonderful feats had changed their lives in some way.

One thing that was very interesting was the fact that early in the book, Pepperberg mentions how she had really wanted to attempt to limit the personal bonding that she and Alex shared. She had been afraid it would taint the work she was doing with him and their attachment to each other would not enable her to see him in an objective light. I find this kind of funny, because it is clear throughout the book that Alex is not just another project to Pepperberg, and that despite her attempts, she and Alex had formed a very unique and special relationship that went way beyond anything that I have ever known with even my most beloved pets.

I really enjoyed this book and think it's a must-read for people who love animal stories. I have to admit that I laughed out loud a lot while reading this book, both at Alex's cleverness and at his inventiveness. It makes me sad to realize he is gone and that Pepperberg lost such a close companion and friend. The matter-of-fact tone of the writing coupled with the extraordinary story it captured was really a winner for me, as I think it would be for may others. A greatly engaging read. ( )

Alex, an African Grey parrot, died at the ripe old age of 31. His brain may be small but he was an extremely intelligent creature. Irene loved her best friend Alex and was devastated when he passed away. This book shows that you don't have to be human to steal a humans heart.

I adore my dogs and I have a special connection with them that can never be broken. I know about the love Irene felt for Alex and she told her story beautifully. ( )

Alex the African Grey parrot was justifiably famous in the scientific community. And when he died, unexpectedly, at a young age for a parrot, his obituary ran in the biggest newspapers and magazines of our time, highlighting his importance in our understanding of language formation and acquisition and in just far how our previous assumptions about human language were incorrect.

Starting with Alex's death and the numbness Pepperberg, the scientist who worked with Alex for more than 30 years, felt afterwards, the narrative then shifts backwards in time to Pepperberg's childhood love of birds, her marriage, and education. And then Alex enters the story. A young bird whom Pepperberg chooses randomly to be the subject of her biological language studies. She makes the conscious decision not to bond too closely with Alex in order to maintain a needed distance in training and to ensure that her scientific results were unquestionable.

This memoir of Alex, his accomplishments, and the training he underwent to learn to speak and comprehend as well as he did is very definitely written for the lay reader. Pepperberg doesn't go into great depth about the training or the conclusions as a result of Alex's abilities but she does discuss them superficially. Instead she describes a parrot who is a major personality in his own right, transcribing bits of her notes detailing when Alex was intractable or uncommunicative or teasing. She details his accomplishments and the various labs in which he lived.

What she doesn't capture well though, is the great love that she must have felt for this smart, frustrating, amazing, challenging creature. And that is too bad, whether it is in an effort to maintain her original stance that she wasn't too attached to Alex so that her results remain scientifically significant or because she just couldn't open up about the emotional devastation she felt, because more transparency about that bond would have made this a stronger book. As it stands, it was an interesting and quick read even if, as an animal lover, I was already convinced that our critters have a lot more intelligence than we give them credit for. I do remember hearing about Alex after his death and I am glad that I had the chance to read this book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours for sending me a review copy of this book. ( )

Recommended. This is the story of Alex, the Grey Parrot, who demonstrated a clear understanding of concepts previously successfully tested only in apes and dolphins. The book itself is fairly short, and presented in double-spaced text, so it is a very fast read. The book talks of the author's journey through the scientific/educational establishment with a research topic involving communication with a bird. And she succeeded - contrary to expectations. Alex the parrot has become famous, and her research famous as well.

The book is written for a lay audience, with emphasis on anecdotes rather than the scientific discoveries. But those scientific discoveries are also discussed, in layman's terms. There are pointers to the full papers, as well. Enjoyable by anyone interested in linguistics, animal communication, and memoirs. ( )

I enjoyed the recorded version of this book. The author's dedication to he investigation and to her subjects was heroic. Her management of her human relationships was less successful. This is a story of a life in science, and a very unconventional one. The author takes some pot shots at behaviorists, which are as unnecessary as they are wrong. In fact, Skinner-inspired radical behaviorists are among those psychologists who appreciated her work most, while anthropocentric cognitive psychologists were actually among those who have been least accepting of her findings and their implications. Still, a most enjoyable personal story of a journey in behavioral science. ( )

This is a really fantastic book, particularly for people who love birds, but really anyone who has ever bonded with an animal (or fought to maintain objectivity as a scientist) will empathize with Pepperberg's bond with Alex. ( )

This is the story of Alex, an African Grey parrot who was the subject of Irene Pepperberg’s 30-year experiment in animal intelligence.

As someone who is convinced we humans do not give other animals due credit when it comes to intelligence, I was ready to be wowed by Alex. While Alex’s intellect was impressive, Pepperberg’s writing left something to be desired. To start, it takes her 50 pages (of a 226-page book) to actually begin the story, and spends entirely too much time talking about herself. I was disappointed in the book’s brevity and overall lack of detail about his leaning progress, particularly when it came down to technique and the methods used to test his intelligence. I would happily have digested a book twice this size in exchange for more fascinating detail.

For another, better written take on avian intelligence, try Wesley the Owl. ( )

A very disappointing read as I was expecting more about the bond between Dr Pepperberg and Alex as the title implied. The writing felt very clinical and somewhat detached and more about scienctific responses than the actual relationship. The entire story seemed very dispassionate and I didn't experience the same type of emotional response from it as I did from others stories(Merle's Door, Dewey, Marley and Me) that I thought were better written. However, the most frustrating thing of all is the inconclusive ending. Dr Pepperberg talks about taking Alex to the vet for an autopsy, yet never says anything about the results or what final arrangements were made for Alex. I understand what a traumatic time that must have been, however if you're going to write Alex's story it needs to be the full story, from beginning to end. And this story was severly lacking when it came to the end. This book would be enjoyed by someone who enjoys science and animal behavior but as someone who was looking for a story about the emotional bond between animal and owner this was not the right book. ( )

The sub-title to this book is "How A Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process." And that's pretty much what this short book is about. The author, Irene Pepperberg, is an associate research professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts and she also teaches animal cognition at Harvard. For 30 years she trained and scientifically tested Alex, a highly intelligent African Grey parrot. This book only touches on the scientific aspect of her work. It's main focus is the bond that developed between Alex and herself.

I enjoyed this book very much. My one gripe is that the focus of the book was more about the bond between Pepperberg and Alex and less about what was learned by studying and testing Alex's cognitive abilities. Whatever we do learn about his abilities is told anecdotically instead of showing the reader the results of the extensive tests that were performed. The book was written more as a human interest endeavor than the process and progress of a scientific study. I would have liked to see both. So my complaint is: This 226 page book is not enough; I want more!

Pepperberg has an earlier work entitled The Alex Studies. I'm adding it to my TBR pile. ( )

I wasn’t sure how well I’d like this book, it isn’t anything like the stuff I’ve been reading recently, but I figured it would be a good diversion.

However, I found myself pretty interested and pulled into the book. The author has a really engaging way of writing, you really feel as though this is fiction instead of a true tale about her life with a bird. I especially liked how she started at basically the beginning of her life, describing the effect birds have had on her from the start.

To read the rest of my review, please visit:
http://dorolerium.com/?p=238 ( )

Pepperberg’s account of her experience with Alex is accessible, amusing, and ultimately touching - I definitely teared up when Alex died. On the other hand, I disliked Pepperberg’s litany of personal tragedies - a distant mother, a tough childhood, an unsupportive husband, difficulties getting employment. While they provide some context for Pepperberg’s struggle to gain legitimacy for her research with Alex, she dwells on them a little too much when Alex should be the star.

Read the rest of the review. ( )

NoBSBookReviews ( )

Sadly, Alex died a few months ago. This book, written since his death, is a wonderful recounting of the work of Alex and the famous parrot intelligence studies. This book is written for the layman rather than the scientist so it is easy to understand. Owning a parrot myself (although a yellow nape which are not great talkers (although they are great screamers, more on that below) I can testify that they are very smart. She cites examples such as how when Alex got bored he would answer with every wrong answer and omit the right answer. She explains how this is not the kind of statistical proof (anecdotal evidence is not considered proof) the science community wants. Poor Alex, and the researchers, were subjected to thousands of hours of experiments just to create the stats the science community needed - with mixed results. The real question: are the mixed results because parrots are not proven intelligent through the design of the experiments, or are they so intelligent that they decide the experiments are "for the birds?". Alex made up his own word for apple, banerry, and refused to use the word apple, correcting the researchers when they would try to correct him.

I have my own example (anecdotal) of parrot intelligence: my parrot Jules has a rote way of crying like a baby and then saying "shut up" at the end. Yesterday, he was screaming in a high-pitched voice which set my lab Ben howling. When Ben started howling, Jules said "shut up." He did not say it at the end of his usual string of screams. He seemed to directly reply to Ben's howl by singularly saying "shut up." As far as I know he never used "shut up" in this novel way before.

Not only does the book capture the highlights of working with Alex and the other lab parrots, it also adds biography about Irene's own life from childhood through all the many years of scientific research in which she had to shuttle from one University lab to another. There are glimpses of the difficulties women researchers face to be taken seriously, especially when bucking the norms and trends of University politics and "established" research methods and protocols.

*If you want to buy an Amazon parrot, please bear in mind that they are morning and evening birds - "biurnal". They are awake in the morning and at night but sleep during the middle of the day. This is good if you are gone for the day to work. But bear in mind they love to scream. They are very noisy mornings and evenings and especially around meal times. Dr. Pepperberg owned an African Grey, and I cannot comment on their behavior. But please do your homework before adding a highly intelligent bird to your family. The smartest birds are the parrot species and raven/crow species. ( )

not quite successful combo of biography(alex) and autobiography. not much about her personal life as an adult. would like to have learned more about grey parrots--where they're from. but very engaging none the less. if alex was so smart and unusual, why didn't she breed him? maybe she wrote the book to make money. ( )

I'd been looking forward to this book but found it quite disappointing. The workmanlike prose grew tiring after a while; there were too many descriptions of the experiments and the author's various career moves and labs, at the expense of her thoughts on what these birds' intelligence consists of. And it was incomplete as well - I wanted to know what he died of, and how did he move from single words to complete sentences like Will you be in tomorrow? If he indeed said that, that's a big departure from three green triangles. ( )

This book did not convince me that Alex's vocalizations originated with Alex, as opposed to being responses to subliminal cues from the experimenters (the Clever Hans phenomenon). To be fair, it would be necessary to read the scientific papers to determine that. See the recommendation I have made from this book to The Alex Studies. Pepperberg may be right. ( )

Well written account of author's life and time with Alex, documents scientific advances made, longer ISBN is 9780061672477

In Sept. 2007, Alex, a 31 year- gray African parrot, the most famous parrot in the world, died, emotionally devastating the women who had had him for 30 years and was the cause of his fame. Irene Pepperberg grew up with birds all her life, then got her Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry. Yet the work didn't satisfy her, and she turned to studying cognition and language acquisition in the African gray parrot. African grays were chosen because their pronunciation is better than other birds capable of speech.

Pepperberg began trauning Alex to recognize shapes, colors, and numbers. His capabilities for doing so were astounding. During the 30 years of training, he on his own picked up the abstract concept of none, was able to recognize what was same and what was different, and more. With other scientists studying animal cognition, this has caused a revolution, showing that animals are capable of thought, and that a creature with a brain the size of a shelled walnut was capable of abstract concepts.

Pepperburg summed up her scientific studies in her previous book, The Alex Studies. This book in more personal, about her life and how it led her to this work, about her deep bond with Alex, the depth of which even she was not aware of until his loss, and about the studies she did with Alex. His personality emerges as the alpha bird, bossy, playful, and loving. His last words to her were "You be good. I love you. You'll be in tomorrow"?

There are great moments of humor. In one, Alex was at the vets and near the desk of the accountant. He asked the accountant, "want a nut?" "No". "Want corn" "No, Alex, thank you"... this went on a while. Finally, Alex petulantly asked, "Well, what DO you want?". The accountant laughed and started paying attention to Alex, which is what he wanted.

The book begins with a discussion of what Pepperberg calls her "It's a Wonderful Life" moment. After Alex's death, emails and letters poured in from people who let her know just how much she and Alex had meant in their lives... from scientists, animal lovers, and others.

The book is fairly short, written for a lay person, and written well. Marvelous! ( )

A great and amazing story, but just an ok book. I loved learning about Alex and all he had learned and what an amazing bird he was, but as far as a good book to sit down and read this isn't it. If you have even a little interest in this subject you'll find this very interesting, however if you don't really care about animal communication I doubt you'll enjoy this book. i felt like the time periods went by at varying speeds which was a little weird, and I felt it jumped from idea to idea. I think the book could've been organized better becasue sometimes things came out of nowhere. I love the story of Alex but I wish this book had been composed differently so others who may not have a strong interest will still enjoy this book! ( )

Not exactly what I was expecting. I wanted more of the scientific side of things, this was more auto-biographical. Easy read. ( )

The research conducted by Irene Pepperberg and Alex, the African Grey, offers proof of what many pet owners have known all along, both for domesticated and wild animals: animals have personality, intentionality, emotion and empathy, and most importantly intelligence.

"Alex and Me" is the story of Pepperberg's thirty-year experience with Alex and the many challenges and triumphs of their research work together in scientific fields (evolutionary biology particularly) where few thought animals, let alone those 'bird-brains,' had any sort of higher level thinking or communication skills. Alex proved them all wrong, demonstrating reasoning skills (e.g. with the concept of "none" for zero) and several other key cognitive processes once thought only to be possible in humans (equivalence, same/different concept, creative word and phrase construction for new objects, among other communication skills).

The story is a remarkable one, and Alex's lifetime achievements (he died in September 2007) helped to publicize animal intelligence to the scientific community and to the masses through various television clips and programs. Bird-owners have known for years just how intelligent these feathered friends are, but Pepperberg brought scientific methodology to the stage to remind us (humans) that animals are far more intelligent that we usually give them credit for being (and that as part of the world we share, we should be just as conscious of our effects on the animal world as we are on climate change or trees).

Pepperberg, as a scientist, is heavily invested in demonstrating her distance from the subject in order to validate her research. While she does point out how she repeated several learning achievements to attain a sample size large enough for her evidence, often to the point of making Alex bored with the task at hand, this detracts from the book. She clearly loved Alex, but did not realize the impact of their work until the outpouring of support following his death, as she states herself. This is unfortunate. Her messages regarding the need to provide companionship and stimulation for pet birds are spot-on and should be sold in a pamphlet with every bird purchased, but I wonder how much Alex missed out on in his life because Pepperberg tried so desperately to remain scientific. Granted he had more attention than most pets ever see, but he lived a rather sterile life and could have done so much more without the scientific restrictions of duplicating an ‘experiment’ to amass evidence, or without constantly fighting for grants and funding that necessitated moving cross-countryand losing time/progress. Then again, the scientific community would have paid little attention to a result outside the lab.

At the end of the book Pepperberg becomes heavy-handed when driving home her point about a “oneness” in the world, and how humans and animals are all interconnected rather you believe in God or not. Philosophy is not her forte, and throughout the book (as at the end) she often seems to be struggling to validate herself as a scientist rather than to tell her story, and the story of a remarkable bird named Alex.

As a former bird owner, I devoured the book in one evening seeing connections with my own experiences with a parakeet that learned to talk (and understand concepts). “Alex and Me” is a wonderful story for the animal lover and for the casual reader. The more scientific discussions of their achievements are reserved for Pepperberg’s other published papers and her book “The Alex Studies” (Harvard, 2000), but there is sufficient detail here to illustrate their work and accomplishments as a research pair. Alex will be greatly missed, but we can hope that Wart and Griff, or other Greys in the future, will carry on the standard for the Alex Foundation. ( )

This is Irene Pepperberg's moving tribute to Alex, the African Grey parrot that she worked with for thirty years, and whose linguistic and mental abilities helped upset assumptions about animal cognition. Pepperberg does hit the high points of her research results, but readers who are really interested in the science of their work should read her 2000 book The Alex Studies. Pepperberg chronicles her life, and the book is also interesting for its look at the life of a researcher and professor: it can be quite stressful, having to constantly be searching for grants and a new job, when one doesn't get tenure. When one is doing edgy research that contradicts long-held assumptions, it only becomes harder. The human-bird interactions are both fascinating and amusing. Alex knew what he wanted, and intended to make sure that his humans gave it to him. He would refuse to work when bored, demand treats whether or not it was convenient, and generally attempt to make it clear that he was top bird, a position perhaps exceeding top person. It was certainly eye-opening for me: I had no real appreciation of the personality and intelligence of birds. I was left with a question: was Alex unusual, even unique? But I suppose that I should take my own advice and read the Alex Studies. Particularly interesting for people with an interest in human-animal interactions, birds, and linguistics. ( )

All my life, I have been fascinated with the idea of cross-species communication. As a young girl, I devoured books about the ape language experiments and John C. Lilly's work with dolphins. It is mildly surprising, therefore, that I missed out on the news about Alex the talking parrot. I don't recall hearing one thing about Pepperberg's work with him until I heard about this book. And knew that I had to read it.

Alex was an African gray parrot who worked with scientist Irene Pepperberg for about thirty years. The book actually opens and ends with discussion of Alex's untimely death at the age of 31 in September of 2007. Now, I was not a fan of this animal, and am not particularly fond of birds, but I sobbed like an idiot over Pepperberg's reminiscences and the pages of notes and tributes that she received after his death. You'd have to be hard-hearted indeed to be immune. And apparently Alex touched many, many lives in his own unique way. None more so than the scientist who worked with him.

Pepperberg seems to be a bit of an odd bird herself. She had a strange upbringing and was by her own account socially awkward. Awkward, but wicked smart. She excelled academically and despite her interest in biology devoted herself to the study of chemistry, eventually earning a Ph.D. in the field. Unfortunately, by the time she completed her matriculation she realized her true interests lay elsewhere. Late in the game she made the switch to animal behavior. Her unusual background was one of many professional hindrances Pepperberg describes through the course of this book. There were never enough research grants, or lab space, or open minds. Well, all good stories need conflict.

And the real story here is about the work she and Alex achieved over the course of his life. African grays are among the best talkers in the avian world. Pepperberg's idea to embark on language studies with a bird was fairly revolutionary back in the 70's. The experiments Pepperberg describes and the results achieved are unquestionably fascinating. And far from being a mere test subject, Alex as described has a personality that's larger than life.

Alex & Me is very interesting on multiple levels--as far as it goes. But ultimately, that was my biggest frustration with this book. Totaling a scant 240 pages, the book never really went into anything in depth. Partly it is a memoir of Pepperberg's life, but everything is discussed fairly superficially--her childhood, her relationship with her husband, their eventual divorce, professional rivalries, and various friendships. Names of people are plugged in throughout the book, but not one other human is fleshed out significantly. Likewise, the science was absolutely riveting, but too often for my liking Pepperberg glossed over the details of her work, perhaps fearing she'd bore lay readers. It left me craving much more information, but to it's credit, Alex & Me did reawaken my interest in this subject. ( )

This is the story of a woman trying to find her place in the world and the African Gray parrot who helped her do it. Dr. Irene Pepperberg was, and is, a female scientist working in the maligned field of research on animal intelligence. Much of the book is about her constant struggle to have her work accepted by the scientific community. Despite her rigorously designed experiments and meticulous methods, many scientists are not yet ready to believe the amazing things she, and other animal intelligence researchers, have discovered. And what Dr. Pepperberg has discovered is that birds are far more intelligent then we ever could have expected. The star of the book is Alex, the bird who has taught her most of what she knows.
I was most amazed by Alex's brilliant personality. He was bossy, jealous, affection, and sometimes very funny. Many times during the experiments Alex would leap ahead displaying understanding many times greater then Dr. Pepperberg ever could have hoped. Those moments are breathtaking and I loved those parts of the book.
Unfortunately the book is not as well written as I would have liked. Dr. Pepperderg is a serious scientist and her writing retains the seriousness and structure of a scientific document instead of a more easy, flowing style. Still, if you have any interest in parrots, animals, or the subject of animal intelligence the book is well worth the read. ( )