The Song Of The Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions

Description

This is a stunning book with graceful reverberations' Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge 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 island-like 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.

David Quammen is a recipient of the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the author of five acclaimed natural history titles. His most recent book, The Song of the Dodo, won the BP Natural World Book Prize in 1996. He lives in Montana.

Not only is this book compulsively readable - a masterpiece - it is maybe the masterpiece of science journalism -- Bill Mckibben * Audobon Magazine * A moving book... Quammen is a good writer who has taken the time to master an important subject and do it justice -- Richard Dawkins * The Times * 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 th field -- Matt Ridley * Sunday Telegraph * Impressive and deeply moving...blends first-rate science journalism with superb travel and nature writing * Financial Times * David Quammen is a brilliant young star of nature writing... His book is an important example of the genre, written in an enchanting style. His knowledge, based on years of research and adventure around the world, is truly impressive -- Edward O. Wilson, author of 'The Diversity of Life'