From "one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking writers of
natural history" (The Seattle Times), a collection of enduring essays
that form a bestiary of wondrous creatures and a gallery of the human
faces that peer at them.
The Boilerplate Rhino brings together twenty-six of David Quammen's
most thoughtful and engaging essays from his column for Outside
magazine, gifting readers with an irrepressible assortment of ideas to
explore, conundrums to contemplate, and wondrous creatures to behold.
In lucid, penetrating, and often quirkily idiosyncratic prose, David
Quammen takes his readers with him as he explores the world. His travels
lead him to rattlesnake handlers in Texas; a lizard specialist in Baja;
the dinosaur museum in Jordan, Montana; and halfway across Indonesia in
search of the perfect Durian fruit. He ponders the history of nutmeg in
the southern Moluccas, meditates on bioluminescent beetles while soaking
in the waters of the Amazon, and delivers "The Dope on Eggs" from a
chicken ranch near his hometown in Montana.
Quammen's travels are always jumping-off points to explore the rich and
sometimes horrifying tension between humankind and the natural world, in
all its complexity and ambivalence. The result is another irrepressible
assortment of ideas to explore, conundrums to contemplate, and wondrous
creatures to behold.