America's finest nature writer David Quammen has had the privilege of being under their tutelage in his salad days. Culled from his break-through book, The Song of the Dodo , the lecture examines species extinction on islands and applies the lessons learned to mainland habitats. And David Quammen has written on the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang, about the merits, if any of tiny creatures like the mosquito, and voiced his concerns about large ones like the tigers of Nepal. Hunted down for their skins, less than 5,000 tigers remain in the world today and it will take less than five years, before they go the way of the dodo. One way of distinguishing the two is by noting that in non-fiction, the people, facts and events are real and do exist, whereas in fiction, they are invented, but could exist in the world.
Some writers offer books which are non-fiction, but which encompass the fictitious.
One had ventured to remark that historical fiction was a valid genre, but the act of palming off the fictitious as Truth in a work of non-fiction was unacceptable. For me, Haldane is a role model. Quammen's novels are informed by the history of science. The environment and writing seem to have been all-consuming passions. By his own admission, Quammen always knew he wanted to write.