The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 288 pages
• Published by: Scribner April 17, 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0743200322
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0743200325
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 7.2 ounces

Product Review
David Quammen, a highly regarded popular-science writer (Song of the Dodo) and novelist, brings a range of qualities to his work as an interpreter of nature: a journalist's talent for finding a good story and telling it well, a scholar's conviction that facts matter, and an amateur naturalist's passion for learning about the way things work. For 15 years, Quammen put these qualities to good use in his Outside magazine column "Natural Acts." The Boilerplate Rhino gathers 26 of those columns between book covers, and to good purpose: every one of them is a keeper. Quammen writes of such matters as the entirely reasonable human fear of spiders (which he shares) and snakes (which he does not); of the work of such groundbreaking theoreticians and thinkers as E.O. Wilson and Henry David Thoreau; of the history of American lawns; the life of the durian fruit; the commodification of nature by way of television documentaries; the strange scholarly fortunes of Tyrannosaurus rex; and the landing patterns of cats in free fall. (Really.) A single theme underpins these scattered pieces: namely, how humans "in all their variousness, regard and react to the natural world, in all its variousness." Quammen explores this theme with good cheer and hard-won knowledge, and his essays teach his readers much about the world. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Rippling with verve, this fourth collection of essays culled from the latter half of Quammen's tenure as a columnist at Outside magazine (1981-1996) displays yet again how dexterously he fulfilled his monthly mandate "to demonstrate that evolutionary biology, theoretical ecology, and the incisive contemplation of nature can provide piquant entertainment for people in dental waiting rooms." Among his obsessions this time around are spiders and snakes, sperm and (somewhat more equivocally) eggs; reflections of nature in the eyes of artists and writers (the title alludes to Albrecht D?rer's woodcut of a rhino armored like a feudal German knight, one of the world's first mass-produced images); and durian, a thorny yellow-green fruit the size of a rugby ball, which "smells like a jockstrap" but yields a pulp that's "creamy and slightly fibrous, like a raw oyster that's been force-fed vanilla ice cream" and that envelops another recurring motif: the nutmeg. As ever, it's a delight to watch Quammen (Song of the Dodo) take off in pointy-headed pursuit of the answer to a question that he has just twisted his brain to produce, such as why owls don't have penises or what is the terminal velocity of a plummeting cat. Nor is he above sticking his neck out and turning his meticulous gaze on his own foibles (why, Quammen wonders, is he a cringing arachnophobe, when he is also an avid snake fancier?). While one occasionally catches a glimpse of the "pinched worried ruthless countenance" of a man on a relentless monthly deadline, that sight only humanizes his formidable eye, ear and intellect. Agent, Ren?e Golden. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder (Hardcover) Most scientists can't write. That's because they are scientists, not writers. If they try to write then they probably write in the evening after walking the dog and just before they fall asleep. They then think: "Let's explain this very difficult theory in a very difficult way to very few people. That's a pity because science can be interesting. At least that's what I think after reading this and other books by mr. Quammen. David Quammen is a writer and he writes before walking the dog. I discovered his books after being forced by my girlfried to read his "The song of the dodo", a book about island biogeography. Don't feel ashamed, I also didn't know what island biogeography was. "Dodo" went on for over 600 pages about Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Indonesia, evolution and extinction. And I loved it. Even the difficult bits because David Quammen can write and explain complicated theories. His prose makes you want to go out and buy a microscope or visit the Galapagos islands. In "The boilerplate rhino" Quammen writes about a species of bat that are eaten on Guam, slime molds, why we worry about dolphins in canned tuna and not about the tuna in canned tuna, racing lizards, rattlesnakes and the importance of nutmeg. It's another fascinating combination of rarities in good prose and explaining difficult things without making you feel dumb. Buy this book and you probably will want to eat the fruit called Durian which tastes wonderful but smells like a jockstrap.