The Boilerplate Rhino by David Quammen $15.00

Nature in the eye of the beholder

Rippling with verve, this fourth collection of essays culled from the latter half of Quammen’s tenure as a columnist at Outside magazine (1981-1996) displays yet again how dexterously he fulfilled his monthly mandate “to demonstrate that evolutionary biology, theoretical ecology, and the incisive contemplation of nature can provide piquant entertainment for people in dental waiting rooms.” Among his obsessions this time around are spiders and snakes, sperm and (somewhat more equivocally) eggs; reflections of nature in the eyes of artists and writers (the title alludes to Albrecht D?rer’s woodcut of a rhino armored like a feudal German knight, one of the world’s first mass-produced images); and durian, a thorny yellow-green fruit the size of a rugby ball, which “smells like a jockstrap” but yields a pulp that’s “creamy and slightly fibrous, like a raw oyster that’s been force-fed vanilla ice cream” and that envelops another recurring motif: the nutmeg.

Near Fine/Near Fine hardcover with light bumping to base of spine. First Printing, Text is clean and crisp throughout. From the author of “The Song of the Dodo”. The dustjacket has only very light shelf wear. Published by Scribner