Every academic year a new Common Book is adopted into the curriculum for ENG 111: College Reading and Writing, offering students an overarching piece of literature that they are able to learn from. The Common Book for the 2025-2026 academic year is “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law” by Mary Roach.
“Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law” is a non-fiction work where Roach works to understand the ways in which animals commit crimes, and how people try to “solve” the crimes they commit. Roach takes a witty approach as she details her own experiences of working with and interviewing specialists that deal with animal crimes, many of which are workers in connection to wildlife agencies.
One of my favorite parts of her exploring animal crimes is her opening chapter where she attends Wildlife-Human Attack Response Training (WHART) 2018, a “five-day course – part lecture and part field training – taught by members of the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service.” This training is held at a convention center and allowed Roach and others to go through various field activities and lessons about identifying the ways in which animals attack humans. Through analyzing manikin (life sized anatomical model of a human for research) victims and going through a set up crime scene, Roach and the others in the training work together to solve the crime of a bear attack. They identify what kind of bear, what type of attack (defensive or offensive) and whether the victim was alive or dead when the attack occurred.
I think that this opening chapter really sets up Roach’s approach to learning more about the crimes animals commit, by getting to have first-hand experiences with those that are trying to solve crimes involving animals, whether it is animals attacking humans, animals entering other’s homes or animals being a general nuisance to society. Additionally, she discusses the various ways in which people have worked to try to “solve” these issues, from putting down animals that have killed people, to creating bear proof garbage containers, relocating animals or even birth control for monkeys.
Roach’s writing allows the reader to feel immersed in her experiences, as if you are with her while she does these deep dives into learning more about how we interact with wildlife around the world. Her use of first person offers a refreshing tone to the non-fiction genre where instead of being beat over the head with repeated statistics, which I’m sure we’ve all encountered non-fiction works that made reading feel grueling, the reader is able to laugh with Roach as she details her experience of researching animal crimes.
Not only does Roach’s writing allow the reader to be immersed but it also highlights her passion for learning about the topics she researches. Her extensive detail and recording for the people, experiences and information that she has learned infuses her work with an intensified curiosity for more information that makes the reader hungry for more, which Roach answers through her numerous detailed footnotes. These footnotes allow the reader to see the various intensified pockets of information that are see throughout her research. A few of my favorite of her footnotes include her detailing the various synonyms for “kill” that she has learned to use through her research, busting myths related to the innards of birds bursting if they eat rice that this is thrown at weddings and a detailed entry on the red loafers Pope Benedict wears. Each footnote feels like the result of a bunch of mini rabbit holes that Roach tumbled her way through, which I can find very relatable as a constant user of Wikipedia pages and the search feature of TikTok.
Although I don’t typically tend to pick up non-fiction books, this is one that I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend to anyone reading.
