Wild Thoughts from Wild Places
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
In Wild Thoughts from Wild Places, award-winning journalist David Quammen reminds us why he has become one of our most beloved science and nature writers.
This collection of twenty-three of Quammen's most intriguing, most exciting, most memorable pieces introduces kayakers on the Futaleufu River of southern Chile, where Quammen describes how it feels to travel in fast company and flail for survival in the river's maw.
Readers learn of the commerce in pearls (and black-market parrots) in the Aru Islands of eastern Indonesia. Quammen even finds wildness in smog-choked Los Angeles -- embodied in an elusive population of urban coyotes, too stubborn and too clever to surrender to the sprawl of civilization.
With humor and intelligence, David Quammen's Wild Thoughts from Wild Places also reminds us that humans are just one of the many species on earth with motivations, goals, quirks, and eccentricities. Expect to be entertained and moved on this journey through the wilds of science and nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Humanity badly needs things that are big and fearsome and homicidally wild," contends acclaimed science writer Quammen (The Song of the Dodo) in this collection of short pieces, most of which appeared originally in Outside magazine. Quammen is an eloquent and witty apologist for the forces of nature that "civilized" people often want tamed: whitewater rivers, avalanche-prone peaks, even cougars or coyotes living near suburban backyards. Despite the dangers and inconveniences such forces might pose to people, "they give us perspective," Quammen writes. "They testify that God... might not be dead after all." Though his point of view is often not especially original and his analyses are necessarily brief, Quammen brings a well-honed sense of irony to essays that range from meditations on trout habitats to an exploration of Tasmanian geography and genocide. He is at his best when he muses on the deeper meanings of such phenomena as the physical properties of vortices, the life cycles of the barnacle or the evolutionary benefits of mammalian monogamy. Some essays, however, like "You Can Run," which deals with viral outbreaks, seem dated--as do the several pieces on kayaking and skiing competitions. While Quammen's sportswriting is superior to most, it isn't outstanding enough to merit inclusion here. Nevertheless, the collection as a whole is distinguished by Quammen's broad-ranging intelligence, keen wit and unabashed passion for wild things and places.
