David Quammen

In September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that natural selection among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of On the Origin of Species. The human drama and scientific basis of that time constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that illuminates this cautious naturalist who sparked an intellectual revolution. Drawing...

"Lively writing about science and nature depends less on the offering of good answers, I think, than on the offering of good questions," said David Quammen in the original introduction to Natural Acts. For more than two decades, he has stuck to that credo. In this updated version of Natural Acts, curiosity leads him from New Mexico to Romania, from the Congo to the Amazon, asking questions about mosquitoes (what are their redeeming merits?), dinosaurs...

Voyage of the Beagle chronicles Charles Darwin's five years as a naturalist on board the H.M.S. Beagle. The notes and observations that he recorded in his diary included Chile, Argentina and Galapagos Islands and encompasses the ecology, geology and anthropology of the places he visits. A fascinating travel memoir the ideas that were later to evolve into Darwin's theory of natural selection find their naissance in Voyage of the Beagle.

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"The real story of AIDS--how it originated with a virus in a chimpanzee, jumped to one human, and then infected more than 60 million people--is very different from what most of us think we know. Recent research has revealed dark surprises and yielded a radically new scenario of how AIDS began and spread. Excerpted and adapted from the book Spillover, with a new introduction by the author, Quammen's ... investigation tracks the virus from chimp populations...

Best-selling author David Quammen takes readers on a breathtaking journey through America's most inspiring and imperiled ecosystem--Yellowstone National Park--in this monumental book on America's first national park. Yellowstone's storied past, rich ecosystem, and dynamic landscape are brilliantly portrayed in a captivating mosaic of photographs and eloquently written text that blend history, science, and research from the field. As much a visual...

When a father-son hunting trip goes awry leaving the father critically wounded, it is up to his teenage son to find a way for them to survive.