My guest today is bestselling author and naturalist Simeon Kamri.

The Boston Globe describes her as part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson.

Her best-known book is The Soul of an Octopus, which was a finalist for the National Book

Award for Nonfiction in 2015, but she's written about everything from tarantulas to hyenas

to hummingbirds to pink dolphins and as far as I can tell, she's fallen in love with

every one of them.

They look absolutely otherworldly.

They've got these enormous legs and these big feet that look like tyrannosaurus rex.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I want to know everything I could possibly learn about them.

Welcome to People I Mostly Admire with Steve Levin.

Reading her books, I've always felt like there was something very special, almost magical

about her.

I suspect it's because she's devoted her life to animals, but outside the traditional

academic path, which requires and rewards specialization, that manages to take all the

joy out of things, and as a consequence, she's been able to retain a child-like excitement

in her writing.

I'm curious to see if she agrees with me on that, or maybe whether she regrets not following

an academic path.

So you've written that most of your teachers have been animals.

It's true.

It's interesting, because there are people who spend a lot of time with animals or studying

animals who maybe don't recognize them as teachers.

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