A review by bluepigeon
Wild Thoughts from Wild Places by Maria Guarnaschelli, David Quammen, Renee Wayne Golden

3.0

Quammen writes very short, often interesting essays in this book, but I found his all-American childhood, stories of his visits to the Cincinnati Zoo, the history of the old family house more captivating than the writing that directly concerns nature and wild things. Sure, I learned some interesting tidbits of information about the coyotes of Los Angeles, and mountains lion hunting, but it all seemed too superficial. Some of the points he makes about the bioethics of zoos, ethics of hunting, and the role of the human in changing/destroying/trying to fix its environment are well-put, but again, nothing new or revolutionary here. In fact, some essays seem more like summaries of what such-and-such expert said in this book and so-and-so believes than Quammen contributing anything new to the question at hand. So for a good intro to many bioethical arguments and interesting nature factoids, this is a great book. For someone like me, it may be too light.

Quammen's writing style is journalistic for sure, but I found that I wanted more humor, more a sense of direction, which he does not provide. I wanted a bit of Bryson or even Chatwin in there. Some of the articles certainly get lively with rather testy ethical issues, like the one about mountain lion hunting, so that was fun.