Snail tale

I have Elisabeth Tova Bailey to thank for my snail enlightenment. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is part memoir and part portrait of a creature that many of us take carelessly for granted. Bedridden for months by a pernicious virus, a friend brings ETB a snail. This gift initially bemuses her, but there begins the most exquisite of symbiotic relationships. The snail is housed -though not imprisoned- by her bedside and as time passes in her convalescence ("...each moment felt like an endless hour, yet days slipped silently past. Time unused and only endured still vanishes, as if time itself is starving, and each day is swallowed whole, leaving no crumbs, no memory, no trace at all."), her world is given a new window as she becomes enthralled by the way the snail lives its life, its habits and routines. She discovers what it prefers to eat, what is bad for it to eat; the full range of its sensory capacities and even its memory. When she lies awake in the small hours, she derives immeasurable solace from the distinctive sound of the snail munching its favourite snack, Portobello mushroom.
It is a beautifully written book, and an important one at that. It'll make you think next time you hear the crunch of snail shell underfoot, or see escargots on the menu; it makes you think about living.