The Song Of The Dodo - Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions (Paperback, Reissue)

This one has a personal resonance and is my fantasy book, in fact. If I hadn't been a novelist I would have wanted to be a naturalist, an adventurer or a traveller. Quammen is all of these. His book is ostensibly a painstaking - almost 700 pages! - report on the distribution of animal and plant species on islands. This could have been a work of armchair scholarship but Quammen has the nature of a prowler and the eye of a novelist. We end up hunting dodos, marsupial tigers, dragons and a pestilential outbreak of snakes in Mauritius, Tasmania, Komodo and Guam, while Quammen reveals his Theory of Everything. I have never before been so completely captivated by a work of non-fiction. A masterpiece of natural history. Review by Jim Crace, whose books include 'Being Dead' (Kirkus UK)

Why have island ecosystems always suffered such high rates of extinction ? In our age, with all the world's landscapes, from Tasmania to the Amazon to Yellowstone, now being carved into islandlike fragments by human activity, the implications of this question are more urgent than ever. Over the past eight years, David Quammen has followed the threads of island biogeography on a globe-encircling journey of discovery. 'Not since Gerald Durrell's books 30 years ago have I encountered such writing about the natural World. The witty, pithy, modest prose and the clever interweaving of science and storytelling are of a quality unrivalled in the field' Matt Ridley, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH. 'Quammen's heroic, demanding book is a monument to scholarly rigour and scientific accuracy. Scientists are raving about it in the States, yet the lay reader too will be borne along by his engaging intelligence, his good-natured mix of learning and humour.' Alexander Frater, OBSERVER. 'This book is vital.' John Fowles, SUNDAY TIMES.

General

Imprint:	Pimlico
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	July 1997
Authors:	David Quammen
Dimensions:	233 x 154 x 48mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	702
Edition:	Reissue
ISBN-13:	978-0-7126-7333-4
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > General Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Biogeography Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Applied ecology > General
LSN:	0-7126-7333-4
Barcode:	9780712673334

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