The Unexpected Universe: A Library of America eBook Classic
<b>“No one has ever managed to make the pursuit of knowledge feel more soulful or more immediate than Loren Eiseley . . . ” —Ben Cosgrove, <i>The Daily Beast</i></b><br /> <br />At the height of a distinguished career as a paleontologist, Loren Eiseley turned from fieldwork and scientific publication to the personal essay. Here, in <i>The Unexpected Universe</i>, he displays his far-reaching knowledge and searching curiosity about the natural world, and the qualities that led many to hail him as a “modern Thoreau.” Fascinating accounts of the journeys of Odysseus, Captain Cook, and Charles Darwin frame Eiseley’s more modest wanderings as a suburban naturalist, attentive to the lives of small creatures. Sometimes he travels no further than the local dump. And yet, like Homer’s hero or these great explorers, he continually finds a universe “not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”