Product Description
In 1981 David Quammen began what might be every freelance writer's dream: a monthly column for Outside magazine in which he was given free rein to write about anything that interested him in the natural world. His column was called "Natural Acts," and for the next fifteen years he delighted Outside's readers with his fascinating ruminations on the world around us. The Boilerplate Rhino brings together twenty-six of Quammen's most thoughtful and engaging essays from that column, none previously printed in any of his earlier books.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.
Amazon.com 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
Average Customer Review:
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Essays You Can See, 2004-05-22
Boilerplate Rhino is another collection of magazine columns, like "Natural Acts" (1985), "The Flight of the Iguana" (1988) and "Wild Thoughts from Wild Places (1998). Quammen is an excellent nature essayist, with just the right recipe of fact, whimsy, self-deprecation and seriousness. His ruminations will have you alternately howling with laughter, moaning in anguish, barking angrily and purring with satisfaction -- and along the way you'll add a snootful of useless facts to your cocktail chatter.His "Song of the Dodo" (1996) was a tough slog due to the weight and mass of four long books rolled in one, but the 20-minute essays here are just the right length.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Good stuff!, 2003-08-24
Quammen has compiled a thoughtful and entertaining collection of his essays for THE BOILERPLATE RHINO. You don't need to be a nature buff or of a scientific mind to enjoy what he's written. This was a bit of an impulse buy due to a bargain price, but I was pleasantly surprised. I look forward to reading more of Quammen's work!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Dave Quammen does it again!, 2003-04-25
There's really little wonder why Quammen is one of the greatest writers of the natural world. He brings out his experiences, and the science of things so eloquently and entertainingly. You'll finish The Boilerplate Rhino - which is really a collection of 25 of his best column articles from Outside magazine - in a few sittings .
Quammen's nose for news keeps him on his toes in discovering the reality of the natural world. He won't rest till he's seen or investigated or read up tremendously (Quammen is immensely well read) on a subject he gets a little keen on. THAT is what keeps the reader hooked onto his writings, experiencing an involvement, thereby taking yet another step into the beautiful world we still know so little about.
You will enjoy The Boilerplate Rhino as Quammen takes you on his journeys into places as far out as the Sundas to as intimate as your very own backyard.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
RIDE A RHINO!, 2003-01-22
Reading the fascinating twenty-six essays that make-up this book is the closest I have come to riding a rhino. David Quammen's fantasies are exhilarating; and he knows how to pen them down.
The lives of these essays revolved around those of octopus, beetles, and bats: before assuming a cosmic dimension.
This book is a fine collection of fictions, which will please most fantasy lovers.
However, some parts of it appeared more or less shallow. Still, it's worth the time that any willing reader would like to invest on it.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Wonderful nature writing, 2002-05-03
Reading Quammen is like meeting a fascinating fellow in a bar who is really smart, tells great stories and is fun to listen to. Quammen's area of storytelling is the world of nature, from ants to rhinos. Some nature books are heavy slogging (EOWilson's "Consilience" comes immediately to mind) but Quammen writes page-turners. The chapters in the book appeared earlier as columns in Outside magazine.