Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures

by Katherine Rundell Narrated by Lenny Henry, Katherine Rundell

Overview

From the award-winning author Katherine Rundell comes a “rare and magical book” (Bill Bryson) reckoning with the vanishing wonders of our natural world

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction.

Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it's not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what's known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel.

But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes-to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures.

Beautifully illustrated, and full of inimitable wit and intellect, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Vanishing Treasures:

“A rare and magical book. I didn’t want it to end.”
—Bill Bryson, bestselling author of The Body and A Walk in the Woods

“Whether she is writing about a jumping spider, a hedgehog, or the curious, pine-cone-like mammals known as a pangolin, Katherine Rundell stuns us with wonders. Each of her essays is a polished gem—and each will leave you newly smitten with love for life.”
—Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of an Octopus

“A compendium of the wonders of the scuttling, flapping, galloping, swimming, and hopping jewels of the world. This charming menagerie features creatures both familiar and strange, whose futures we have imperiled, and Rundell shares their stories with ceaseless curiosity. A book brimming with astonishments and hope.”
—Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches

“To see the world through Rundell's eyes is to see it anew. She writes with such wit, wonder, and effervescence, that you can't help but marvel at every element living creatures on this planet have to offer.”
—Katy Hessel, New York Times bestselling author of The Story of Art Without Men

“This world, even  as we degrade it, remains almost unimaginably beautiful and interesting, as this remarkable bestiary makes clear. Here are a bunch of very very good reasons to actually try and hold on to as much of the Pleistocene as we can.”
—Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature

“A wondrous ode to nature's astonishing beauty—and an elegy for all the life we are in the midst of destroying.”
—Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to Sex

“Exquisite and timely.”
—Maggie O'Farrell, author of The Marriage Portrait

“A total miracle.”
—Max Porter, author of Shy

“A loving and lovely book.”
—Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall

“Rundell's book is, on the surface, about animals - but, in reality, it is a pretext for us to learn about ourselves and our relationship with nature. Written in the enchanted, storytelling tone of medieval bestiaries, Vanishing Treasures captures the joy and wonder of wildlife and weaves it into the fabric of human history. A delight to read.”
—Joanna Bagniewska, author of The Modern Bestiary

“A witty, intoxicating paean to Earth’s wondrous creatures . . . shot through with Rundell’s characteristic wit and swagger.”
—The Guardian

“[A] dazzling collection of essays about some of the world’s most wondrous creatures. From the iridescence of the golden mole to parasites in the eye of the Greenland shark, Rundell details the natural world in exquisite prose . . . Rundell’s gift for language, wit and historical observation combine here to create a rare and beautiful book.”
—The Observer

“There is a constant joy in the book . . . A sense throughout of delight and wonder, and a reminder that these emotions also matter—may even save us. This is the point.”
—New Statesman

“Brisk, eye-opening, thoroughly entertaining . . . Young and old will savor Rundell’s infectious enthusiasm for these remarkable and infinitely varied creatures. A clarion call for preservation by way of a delightful bestiary.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“A poignant survey of animal species whose survival is threatened by humans . . . Rundell approaches her subjects with reverence, as when she writes that blind, iridescent golden moles ‘burrow and breed and hunt, live and die under the African sun, unaware of their beauty, unknowingly glowing.’ Animal lovers will cherish this.”
—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Katherine Rundell:

“Brilliant . . . Supernaturally talented.”
―Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Rundell is the real deal, a writer of boundless gifts and extraordinary imaginative power.”
—The Observer

“I love Katherine Rundell’s writing because it’s so fresh and vigorous, and always so unexpected . . . A writer with an utterly distinctive voice and a wild imagination.”
—Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass

“Rundell is an astonishing young talent.”
—The Daily Mail

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2024-06-28
Literature, folklore, history, and science inform these profiles of 22 endangered species.

The award-winning author of young adult books and a superb biography of John Donne turns her sharp literary style and wit to endangered animals in this brisk, eye-opening, thoroughly entertaining book. Animals who exhibit “everlasting flight, a self-galvanizing heart and a baby who learns names in the womb” may seem like inventions, she writes, but the natural world is "so startling that our capacity for wonder, huge as it is, can barely skim the surface." Meet the speedy swift, the American wood frog, and the dolphin. Early on, Rundell reminds us that we’ve lost “more than half of all wild things that lived.” The quick Australian wombat, one of poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s favorite pets, is “one of the rarest land mammals in the world.” It’s possible that some rarely seen, slow, half-blind Greenland sharks are more than 500 years old. She’s furious that America has refused to designate the giraffe as an endangered species, even though its numbers have dropped 40% in 30 years. She relishes the strength of the coconut hermit crab, named after the hard-shelled fruit it can crack open, whose intricate group interactions "make the politics of Renaissance courts look simplistic.” Of the eight species of bear, six are at risk or endangered, and "the number of hares in Britain has declined by 80 percent in the last century." Storks, conversely, are a “true success story of back-from-the-brink.” Other animals she regards with reverence and concern for their future are seahorses (the majority of their species could be gone by 2050), pangolins (“the world’s only rainbow mammal...currently the most trafficked animals in the world”), and the blind, iridescent golden mole, which can hear ants and beetles crawling aboveground. Young and old will savor Rundell’s infectious enthusiasm for these remarkable and infinitely varied creatures.

A clarion call for preservation by way of a delightful bestiary.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191475998
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	11/12/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged