Night Life: Nature from Dusk to Dawn

by Diana Kappel-Smith

Overview

Journey with Diana Kappel-Smith into the nocturnal world of wild North America. Night Life combines scientific descriptions and personal reflections on creatures ranging from spiders and snakes to large predators of the northern Plains.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816517022
Publisher:	University of Arizona Press
Publication date:	09/01/1996
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

Editorial Reviews

"Facts sprinkle her narrative the way moonlight illuminates a pond. . . . A rich, varied, universal exploration of things that go bump, hop, whoosh—and still—in the night." —Christian Science Monitor"Graceful, insightful nature writing, especially welcome for its focus on such a rarely seen side of the animal world."—Kirkus Reviews"A fascinating introduction to the unknowable, commonplace world just outside the back door." —Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

For her study of nocturnal creatures, Kappel-Smith ( Wintering ) selected disparate environments at different seasons. Seeking information on predators, she walked trap lines during a North Dakota winter; in Hawaii, she sampled night diving on a coral reef, explored lava caves and looked for spiders in a rain forest. At the start of the rainy season, Kappel-Smith journeyed to the Arizona desert to observe kangaroo rats and spadefoot toads. She trekked suburban Connecticut countryside in springtime and joined game wardens on patrol in the Louisiana bayous. The result is an captivating combination of natural history, personal impressions of people and places, and interviews with scientists. Illustrated. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Science writer Kappel-Smith set out to discover what it is that wildlife does while most of us sleep, and from that ambition, she has fashioned a fascinating book. Propelled by her enthusiasm for her work and her love and respect for nature, she reveals much about wildlife at night. Her book is divided into five chapters, each describing a different region: Arizona in August; North Dakota in December; Hawaii in January; Connecticut in April; and Louisiana in June. While exploring these areas, Kappel-Smith travels with wildlife experts and discovers an astonishing array of nocturnal animals--coyotes, octopi, bats, and even human poachers. Her eye is always keen and her observations poetic and honest. Anyone who reads this gem of a book is unlikely to view the night in quite the same way again.-- Randy Dykhuis, OCLC, Dublin, Ohio

Library Journal

Mixing science, meditation, and conversation, Smith explores the twilight of the Arizona desert in July, midnight at a Hawaiian coral reef in January, the night of suburban Connecticut in spring, and nighttime in the hills of North Dakota and the swamps of Louisiana. No scholarly apparatus. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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