Description
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(as of Mar 04, 2025 06:21:38 UTC – Details)
On September 6, 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age 31. His last words to his owner, Irene Pepperberg, were “You be good. I love you.”
What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex’s case, headline news. Over the 30 years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous – two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds. Alex’s brain was the size of a shelled walnut, and when Irene and Alex first met, birds were not believed to possess any potential for language, consciousness, or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Yet, over the years, Alex proved many things. He could add. He could sound out words. He understood concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none. He was capable of thought and intention. Together, Alex and Irene uncovered a startling reality: We live in a world populated by thinking, conscious creatures.
The fame that resulted was extraordinary. Yet there was a side to their relationship that never made the papers. They were emotionally connected to one another. They shared a deep bond far beyond science. Alex missed Irene when she was away. He was jealous when she paid attention to other parrots, or even people. He liked to show her who was boss. He loved to dance. He sometimes became bored by the repetition of his tests, and played jokes on her. Sometimes they sniped at each other. Yet nearly every day, they each said, “I love you.”
Alex and Irene stayed together through thick and thin – despite sneers from experts, extraordinary financial sacrifices, and a nomadic existence from one university to another. The story of their 30-year adventure is equally a landmark of scientific achievement and of an unforgettable human-animal bond.
Customers say
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They describe the story as a personal tale that opens their eyes to the intelligence of birds and animals. The book is described as informative, heartwarming, and thought-provoking. Readers appreciate the dedication of the author to reveal Alex’s potential. They also enjoy the cute stories about Alex.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
M.J.Lawicki –
Engaging, Heartwarming, and Thought-Provokingâ¦
Alex & Me is an engaging and often entertaining narrative about Dr. Irene Pepperbergâs thirty year endeavor to understand the communication and cognitive abilities of her research subject Alex- the African Grey Parrot. Dr. Pepperberg’s arduous studies over the course of three plus decades helped pioneer a greater understanding of animal sentience- a controversial subject among scientists even into the twenty first century.Much of the appeal of Alex & Me relates to the fascinating confluence of genius between the Doctor and her irascible, feathered subject. The two developed the rarest of bonds between human and animal. I found myself chuckling along with Dr. Pepperberg, astounded as fragments of Alexâs remarkable âpersonalityâ were revealed in this story. To say that Alex was a unique would be a gross understatement. His remarkable capacity for learning and communication was rivaled only at times by his mischief-making. The narrative reveals many of the experiments Alex was subjected to over the course of his lifetime, but the main emphasis here is on the extraordinary relationship development between Dr. Pepperberg and her good friend Alex.It is fortunate for the world that Dr. Pepperberg recognized something unique and fascinating about birds in her childhood. Her curiosity and stalwart determination to pursue her research objectives gifted the world with undeniable, significant proof that human beings and primates arenât the only animals capable of language on this planet. In fact, her research with Alex helped pave the way for the current scientific recognition of sentience in many other animal species.There are many take-aways in this wonderful book. The Alex studies helped to significantly deconstruct prevalent behaviorist notions that human beings are unique in the Animal Kingdom and therefore seperate from and superior to all other life forms in nature. The intellectual feats of Alex spanning three decades seem to reveal quite the opposite: human beings are not so unique in the realm of cognitive abilities or consciousness and are, like other animals, merely a part of natural order. Like any human being, Alex was unique in his own way and gifted with a distinguishable personality and abilities. The last words of Alex to Dr. Pepperberg were âI love you. You be good.âWe love you too Alex. You may have flown over the rainbow bridge, but you will never be forgotten!
Lisa Shea –
Touching Story of a Smart Bird
It’s not often that we get to watch a sea change in scientific thought. Most of the big changes – like when we went from thinking the world was flat to round – happened quite a while ago. However, with this book, tracing over the thirty years in Alex’s feathery life, we see how scientists moved from absolutely believing animals could NOT think or talk to coming around to entertain the possibility. That’s a fairly substantial change.Alex, an African Grey Parrot, was a “normal” pet store parrot, not the product of genetic super-breeding. This typical average parrot was diligently trained by the researchers and within an amazingly short period of time he could identify colors, shapes, sizes, and count. The scientists were very careful to verify their findings, to make sure Alex was really doing what they thought he was. With the many other cases of fraud out there, the scientists wanted to make sure their research was beyond doubt, that it was not that they were leading or guiding Alex to the correct answers. He really did have the mental acuity to identify objects and describe what he saw.This may be something we think is fairly easy to agree with in modern times. After all, research with elephants, dolphins, chimps and gorillas have revealed some pretty amazing things about their thought processes. However, back when researcher Irene Pepperberg began, the scientific community thought she was completely insane to even think something like this. Shad to fight yearly for funding to keep her research going.While I enjoyed the Alex story greatly, I do think the book could have used some edited. The primary issue is that the first quarter of the book isn’t even about Alex. It’s about Irene and her background. While I agree that learning about the researcher is important in order to understand the overall story, this was a little much. I really didn’t need to know the month by month details of how Ms. Pepperberg grew up. It would have been fine to summarize this more briefly and get to the main story about Alex.In a similar vein, the very beginning of this book was just a dump of email messages praising Alex. Since we hadn’t even met the bird yet or have any emotional connection with him, it felt very forced. We had to read page after page after page of obituary and press release. This all would have done well at the END of the book when we actually had grown to know and love the fluff of feathers. Then we could have related and empathized with the moving tributes. To have them all piled at the beginning of the book, about a bird we hadn’t even glimpsed yet, made no sense to me. That’s the sort of stuff I wanted to read AFTER I’d read his entire story and felt the sadness of his death.Also, I realize this wasn’t a scientific journal, but I would have liked to see a little more detail about how they were doing the research and less about the funding worries. It seemed like half of the story was angst about how to get funding X or Y or Z rather than learning about Alex and the techniques.So a great story in general, but for me it was too heavily weighed on “Ms. Pepperberg and her background and funding woes” and not enough on “Alex, the amazing creature, and why his life was important.”
Care –
Starts off backwards but concludes in a beautiful way
Cliente Kindle –
Livro maravilhoso… Uma história linda, real e muito bem narrada. Pra quem gosta de animais e possui aves é preciso estar preparado pra se emocionar bastante…
Client d’Amazon –
Dès reçu, j’ai commencé à le feuilleter… Je n’ai pas pu en décrocher, j’ai dû m’arrêter à la page 79 pour ne pas le finir d’une traite ! Captivant au possible !
Ioulia Chiotaki –
It was never delivered to me unfortunately!!! I never got money back too. I loved the book, but never got it. I heard it all as an audio book!!! It is brilliant!!! But it was the first time Amazon didn’t deliver to me.
Simone –
Una splendida scoperta per chi nutre un enorme fascino verso le abilità cognitive riscontrabili in specie diverse da quella umana, ma che non ha avuto esperienze con uccelli e in particolare pappagalli. Ciò che si evince è quanto per noi il linguaggio sia essenziale per comprendere il pensiero altrui, quanto un pappagallo possa imparare ad usarlo per esprimere i propri bisogni, eppure quanto sia limitante se lo vediamo come unico canale per riconoscere un’altra intelligenza.