5/5 stars

I’ve learned about this book by seeing a few comic strips shared on a social network. They were all one-page thing with sentences like: "I accidentally glued myself to an alligator" / "When you realise the bat you’ve been radio tracking is actually the beep signal from the crosswalk…​" / "Suited up to approach an angry beehive. Trapped biting safari ants inside the suit."

Each is accompanied by a gorgeous illustration and a page or two of deeper explanation on what the scientist was doing and how they got in this situation.

Fieldwork Fail is a really special book. It shows scientists as human being, exposing (as the tagline says) the messy side of science. There is this idealised version of science that’s all pristine, always going forward, rigid in the "hypothesis / data / refinement" cycle that’s rarely true in real life.

And this books shows the other side of that story, dirty laundry (literally!) and all.

It is endearing, hilarious and I’ve learned a lot. It is extremely approachable, too! Read it with my three-year-old (playing up the laughs more that the science itself) and they loved it.

This review was originally posted to Goodreads.

by Tomas Sedovic on 28th May, 2025