Looking past some of the technical talk, these essays are overall engaging, informative, and thought-provoking in a light-hearted and funny way.
Summary:
Writer David Quammen compiles some of his later columns for Outside magazine into this collection of bizarre facts and relevant meanings (or nonmeanings). Quammen features his global travels from Guam to Texas to the Amazon and his encounters with spiders, astronomers, stinky fruit, and theories the world over.
Verdict: 7/10
Growing up, I was a bit of a know-it-all. I read National Geographic Kids, aced every test, and my favorite word at age five was 'actually'. In more recent years, I've had my fill of reality, straying away from nonfiction and zoology facts in favor of fiction and magical places. Quammen brought out my curiosity again and reminded me that our world is still full of magical places to explore and questions to ponder. And he poses such good questions that I never would have considered but now must read the reasoning behind and find the answer to... even if there are no answers.
Take the opening line of "Spatula Theory" for instance: "No doubt you've often asked yourself, over the years, why it is that owls don't have penises." (pg. 83) Why no, I haven't... but I sure am asking it now!
Obviously, not all of the stories are about animal genitalia - ok, maybe 2 out of 25. But you learn something new that you probably wouldn't in a textbook. A science teacher is unlikely to tell you nutmeg and mace come from the same plant or that nutmeg can be used as a hallucinogen. Who knew! Or that “a cat falling 17 stories is less likely to be hurt than than a cat falling 7”.
Quammen combines scientific theories/discoveries with everyday understanding, poetic prose with pragmatic wit. A good essayist can find the relatable aspects in otherwise unrelatable subjects, such as slime molds or the speed of lizards in Baja. He doesn't dumb anything down for his readers but sums it up into a practical point for the ordinary reader.
I will say some of it can get a little overly scientific for my taste, with in-depth expositions on philosophies and theories. Other times, it’s a lot of evolutionary talk which loses me for the most part (It’s pointless to ask when skeletons might have developed if you believe they’ve always existed). Once he jumps back to present day or the historical side of things, I'm on board.
While I care nothing for the supposed origins of the trilobite, the historic evolution of the cat’s reputation or the current problem of Guam women shoplifting frozen bats are fascinating subjects! And in a collection of essays, you may not connect with every single one. The deciding question is whether you enjoyed more of them than you didn't. And I think that was very true in this book.
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