About this title: In this collection of essays previously published in Outside magazine, an award-winning nature writer explores the mysteries and quirks of the animal kingdom and questions man's impact on the creatures he reverently describes.
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Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner, New York
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780684837284ISBN:0684837285
Description: Very Good in VG jacket. 0684837285 Dust jacket condition: VG. Marker line(s) at page edge. In 1981 David Quammen began what might be every freelance writer's dream: a monthly column for Outside magazine in which he was given free rein to write about anything that interested him in the natural world. His column was called "Natural Acts, " and for the next fifteen years he delighted Outside's readers with his fascinating ruminations on the world around us. The Boilerplate Rhino brings together ... read more
Description: Good. 0743200322 Standard used condition ie. These are good quality new books from the publisher with a bump, shelf wear, or some sunfading to outer edges of book. Has remainder mark. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner, New York
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780684837284ISBN:0684837285
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Remainder EcologyNature Lite edge wear. Remainder mark on bottom edge. Text is clean and unmarked. read more
Edition: 1st Thus Printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York, NY
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780743200325ISBN:0743200322
Description: Ford, Walton (cover illustration) Good. No Jacket as Issued. Light green illustrated cover with light edge wear, light creasing and soiling. Text clean, binding solid, with very slight spine lean, NO spine creases. 287 pages, with index. Glued binding, 21 cm. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780684837284ISBN:0684837285
Description: Good in fair dust jacket. Hardcover, first edition, first printing 2000. Pages of book are clean and tight without marks or tears. Cover has tearing at the edges and bumps to the cover edges, like it was scraped or dropped. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780684837284ISBN:0684837285
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Ex-library stamp on fly leaf, no other marks. 288 p.; 1.04" x 9.57" x 6.43". Includes Illustrations. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780684837284ISBN:0684837285
Description: Fine. 0684837285 Like new. First Edition. 2000, Hardcover. Dustjacket color illus, 287pp, bibliography, index; VERY nice, bright book in dj that has VERY slight shlfwr-NO marks or tears! Outside Magazine journalist writes of his travels and studies of animals, looking at the tension between man and the natural world. Jacket: Near Fine DJ. No other marks or damage. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Great customer service and a no problem, EZ return policy. Real people, real service, since 1981. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner, New York
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780684837284ISBN:0684837285
Description: Fine. Fine Dust Jacket. Natural History. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 287pp. Biblio & index. Crisp unread condition. Promoting global literacy for over 30 years. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780743200325ISBN:0743200322
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN-13:9780684837284ISBN:0684837285
Description: Fine. DJ. 0684837285 First Edition, First Printing. FINE hardcover book in FINE dust-jacket. As New. Unread. NOT marked. NOT price-clipped. NOT remaindered. NOT faded. NOT book club edition. NOT ex-library. PRISTINE. All of our dust-jackets are shipped in fresh, archival-safe mylar protective book jacket covers. read more
"I'm a science junkie myself and have always heard wonderful things about Quammen, especially from my father, whose opinion I value greatly. I admire authors who can make science coherent and comprehensible to the average reader but who do not simplify that science. It's a difficult task, one few writers handle successfully. And Quammen certainly is one of those writers. However, I was disappointed by this collection because it felt so haphazard, like an author trying to please an overeager acquiring editor by saying, 'Hey, lump some of my columns together and sell them as a book.' It was, therefore, a disappointing read to me, as it had no coherent narrative and, frankly, some of the essays were clunkers, at least for Quammen."
"We have friends whom we don't see often, but I always leave their house after a dinner together with something interesting to read. When I thanked them for being so generous with good books and recommendations they answered, "We like lending books to you because you always return them--unlike many people we know." Well, under that kind of pressure to uphold my sterling reputation, I read this book immediately rather than adding it to the stack so that I wouldn't forget I had it.
This book is a compilation of "Nature Matters" essays by David Quammen which previously appeared in "Outside" magazine. When he took the job as monthly columnist, his editor's only requirement was "that each essay, no matter how abberant, should contain at least passing mention of an animal, a scientist or a tree". Needless to say, this left an amazingly wide range of topics from which to choose--and to say that these essays cover an amazingly wide range of topics is an egregious understatement. He waxes eloquent on everything from timing lizard races, to eating fruit bats, to poets (who write about birds, thus meeting the aforementioned requirement) to slime mold, to Thoreau, to tuna fishing, to homosexual octopuses (pi?), to suburban lawns and a myriad of fascinating scientists, places, creatures and phenomena in between.
Reading these essays is a bit like surfing the Internet. One interesting fact links to something else until one wonders, "How did I get *here* from *there*? This is not exactly "light" reading although the author is quite witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. He brings up many thought provoking--even moral--issues particularly concerning our relationship to and exploitation of animals and natural resources. But it's not as though he has an agenda to prosthelytize but rather to fairly present both sides of an issue and let the reader decide.
These essays offer an intellectual pursuit that is well worth the effort."
"This is a disjointed compendium of unrelated and outdated essays. It's essentially Quammen going through his files and trying to make a few bucks off his old stuff.
I don't blame Quammen for this by any means. The essays were all new to me, and Quammen's warmed-over repeats are better than most writers' latest and greatest. However, I couldn't help but feel that the essays lose something by being collected here, all in one place, with nothing to hold them together."
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