The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature

by David Quammen

Overview

From the award-winning author of The Tangled Tree and The Song of the Dodo comes a collection of essays in which various weird and wonderful aspects of nature are examined.

From tales of vegetarian piranha fish and voiceless dogs to the scientific search for the genes that threaten to destroy the cheetah, Quammen captures the natural world with precision. Throughout, he illuminates the surprising intricacies of the natural world, and our human attitudes towards those intricacies. A distinguished essayist, Quammen’s reporting is masterful and thought provoking and his curiosity and fascination with the world of living things is infectious.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780684836263
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	02/16/1998
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	473,852
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.44(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David Quammen’s books include Breathless, The Tangled Tree, The Song of the Dodo, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, and Spillover. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside, among other magazines, and is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award. Quammen shares a home in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife, Betsy Gaines Quammen, author of American Zion, and with three Russian wolfhounds, a cross-eyed cat, and a rescue python. Visit him at DavidQuammen.com.

Editorial Reviews

Quammen writes about biology and the world of living things with a jaundiced, cockeyed view. He has a healthy respect for the absurdity of life as well as its silliness. . . . He writes with effortless control over his material and a quiet passion.” —Los Angeles Times

“David Quammen’s curiosity is infectious and his thought provocative. Lewis Thomas and Stephen Gould will have to make room for him in the small company of distinguished essayists in the natural sciences.” —Peter Matthiessen

“Quammen’s commentaries on natural history are unique, a delightful blend of skepticism, charming intelligence, and accurate reporting.” —Barry Lopez

“One of the nation’s most eloquent spokesmen for nature.” —San Francisco Chronicle

From the Publisher

Quammen's columns in Outdoor Magazine are famed as an entertaining source of offbeat information. In this collection, he casts sidelong glances at creationism and extinction, at giant earthworms and Canada geese. But he takes a direct view at the plight of Salvadoran refugees and at the Sanctuary Movement; he accompanied one group on a dramatic journey across the Sonoran desert. Quammen examines the special problems of species survival on islands (and tells us what is happening to the birds of Guam); he discusses the unusually small gene pool of cheetahs and how the Papago Indians survive in desert lands. There is a piece about visiting the Okefenokee Swamp, while the title essay is set in the Galapagos. Readers who enjoyed Natural Acts will find Quammen's new collection equally interesting. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Naturalist Quammen's essays, originally appearing as magazine columns, are here compiled into a lively book. His unusual way of seeing leads him into fascinating realms. How many of us have studied the face of a spider or spent an hour thinking about earthworms? Quammen has and shares his observations with us. His widely varied and thought-provoking essays range over humans and their interactions with ecology, including both desert and swamp. The only central focus of the book is Quammen's unified view of the world's natural life, which of course includes us. Recommended. Katharine Galloway Garstka, Intergraph Corp., Huntsville, Ala.

Library Journal