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In The Earwig's Tail, May Berenbaum takes a bunch of her essays written for American Entomologist, adds a few more, and turns them into a book. The essays are mostly about debunking common myths and urban legends about insects. From the introduction we learn that May plans to be funny. I didn't find anything to laugh at and few chapters even brought a smile to my face, but I did find the book interesting anyway.
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the book is not the attempts at humor or the smashing of falsely held beliefs. I found the curious thing to be her ability to go off on a tangent. Each chapter started with one topic and usually ended on a completely different one. Sometimes three barely connected stories would be woven, although not really together. This method of writing or telling a story isn't necessarily a bad thing. The chapters could have been too dry had she just beat the same legend to death from every possible angle.
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