I’ll be honest, having read Dr. Eleanor Spicer Rice‘s four books about ants and found them to be absolutely brilliant, I may have actually squealed (in a manly, dignified way, of course) with glee upon learning of the publication by University of Chicago Press of her new Dr. Eleanor’s Book of Common Spiders.

Joining with Dr. Christopher Buddle of McGill University for this volume, Dr. Eleanor sets out to demystify fourteen common spiders, including such favorites as the Black Widow Spider (Latrodectus), Wolf Spider (Lycosidae), and Zebra Jumper Spider (Salticus scenicus), and as a result bring the reading public a bit more understanding of, and perhaps as a result respect for, these fascinating but all-too-often feared arthropods.