An intelligent and enlightening book … Here is a new take on rats, acknowledging the shudder, the revulsion, but enlightening us, asking us to think again. Rats, like it or not, are our neighbours. We need to learn about them, how they live and how to live with them. Read this book and you will never look at a rat the same way again. They are complex like us, intelligent like us. Read this book and you'll shudder no more when you see a rat. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

Michael Morpurgo

Rats are far from the dirty vermin that we all love to deride; indeed, they are acutely intelligent and thoroughly fascinating. Joe Shute eloquently puts us right about the world's most common rodent and throws in some great facts and theories too.

David Lindo

Stowaway is not another natural history in the vein of the otter or the barn owl … [Shute's] real aim is to show us that, ultimately, the history of rats is a history of ourselves.

Adam Weymouth, The Sunday Times

This wonderful, charming book … forcefully demonstrates how little we know about our rodent neighbours.

Rose George, Spectator

Fascinating

John Simpson