Natural Acts : A Sidelong View of Science and Nature
David Quammen is a naturalist, writer, and literary scholar who can turn from William Faulkner to theories of demographic stochasticity on a dime--or a comma.Natural Acts, a collection of Quammen's columns by the same name fromOutsidemagazine, highlights his many interests. In its pages, he touches on Malthusian population dynamics, the mating habits of butterflies and snakes, Tycho Brahe's quest for the stars, magnolia trees, whales, and deserts--to name just a few of the matters that pass beneath his bemused gaze. This is humanely wrought science writing at its best.--Gregory McNamee