Sue Savage-Rumbaugh

The subject matter was entertaining, but at times the writing style was a bit boring. With that said, it's non-fiction and I spend most of my reading time in the world of fiction so I suppose the book deserves a break.
I'm sure this one will have more staying power than a good yarn, even if I needed to read it while the sun was up to avoid the old head-bob routine.

Key Ideas:

1. Motivation is key to learning. Teaching an animal or a human language skills is difficult unless the subject wants to communicate something of importance (i.e. play with me, give me food, etc.)
2. Intelligence and language depend on the understanding that there are others who have minds that do not know what you know.

Chapters 9 "The Origin of Language" and Chapter 10 "At the Brink of the Human Mind" are particularly interesting and I plan to reread.