Natural Acts

I've been re-reading this brilliant collection of essays by David Quammen. The man can write. Consider this passage in which he describes his companion on a three-day fishing expedition into Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness Area:

Whisperin' Jack is six foot five and weighs about 140 and wears a brown Dobbs fedora that, despite his degree from the Harvard Medical School, makes him look like the kind of quiet creepy guy whose car trunk is one day discovered to contain the sucked-upon finger bones of missing hitchhikers.

Like I said, the man can write. But clever asides like that are just the appetizers, the main course is a series of fascinating essays on natural history: crows and cockroaches, black widows and vampire bats; life and death and sex all take their turn beneath his wry and inquisitive gaze. Not everyone's cup of tea, to be sure, but fascinating stuff.

(As an aside, I once wrote Quammen a letter and asked him the secret to great writing. His answer: "hard work.")