In honor of the 2026 Flagstaff Big Read, we will be discussing Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach.

Pick up your free copy at the Downtown or East Flagstaff Community Libraries, read it ahead of time, then come to the discussion on Wednesday, February 11th.

Synopsis:

What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.

Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem―and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.

The Flagstaff Big Read is a collaboration between Northern Arizona University's College of Arts and Letters and multiple community organizations, including the Flagstaff City-Coconino County Public Library, Native Americans for Community Action, Coconino Community College, Bright Side Book Shop, Culture Connection AZ, South Side Community Association, Cline Library, Flagstaff Literacy Center, and the Museum of Northern Arizona. Staff and volunteers from these organizations put together a slate of activities and programs each spring, organized around a single book. The goal of the Big Read Coalition are to build community; encourage support and enthusiasm for the arts and humanities, and inspire dialogue about broader themes and issues by using a particular text as a springboard for thought and conversation.

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