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A review by lauren_endnotes
The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions by David Quammen
5.0
• THE SONG OF THE DODO: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen, 1996.
I spent a good bit of May making my way through this 700-page book about island ecosystems.
David Quammen is a science journalist, but he could probably moonlight as a comedian / satirical storyteller, because he's got jokes. He relays natural history with some wit and wryness, and choice four-letter words... It makes for very entertaining reading, a kind of running log of biology, travel / "funny stuff that happened in the field", academic quibbles over minutiae, and a larger call for conservation.
Quammen spans the globe in these pages, taking a closer look at island geography, biology, and history from Madagascar to Hawaii, Saint Lucia to Tasmania, Komodo to Madeira.
This book could easily be 5 or 6 books, considering the amount covered here. As the title suggests, there is a lot of discussion about specific island species like the dodo
I spent a good bit of May making my way through this 700-page book about island ecosystems.
David Quammen is a science journalist, but he could probably moonlight as a comedian / satirical storyteller, because he's got jokes. He relays natural history with some wit and wryness, and choice four-letter words... It makes for very entertaining reading, a kind of running log of biology, travel / "funny stuff that happened in the field", academic quibbles over minutiae, and a larger call for conservation.
Quammen spans the globe in these pages, taking a closer look at island geography, biology, and history from Madagascar to Hawaii, Saint Lucia to Tasmania, Komodo to Madeira.
This book could easily be 5 or 6 books, considering the amount covered here. As the title suggests, there is a lot of discussion about specific island species like the dodo