Product Description

Natalie Angier knows all that scientists know - and sometimes more - about the power of symmetry in sexual relations, about the brutal courting habits of dolphins, about the grand deceit of orchids, about the impact of female and male preferences on evolution. She knows how scientists go about their work, and she describes their ways, their visions, and their arguments. Perhaps most poignantly, she understands the complexities and the sad necessity of death. "The beauty of the natural world lies in the details, and most of those details are not the stuff of calendar art," she points out. Few writers have ever covered so many facets of biology so evocatively in one book. The Beauty of the Beastly tells us how the genius of the biological universe resides in its details and proves why, according to Timothy Ferris, author of the acclaimed Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Angier is "one of the strongest and wittiest science writers in the world today."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #528841 in Books
• Published on: 1996-03-07
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .90" h x 5.50" w x 8.50" l, .90 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Angier (Natural Obsessions: The Search for the Oncogene), the Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for the New York Times, confesses that she enjoys writing "about organisms that many people find repugnant: spiders, scorpions, parasites, worms, rattlesnakes, dung beetles, hyenas." In these elegant essays (most of which have appeared in the Times), Angier discusses sexual and parental behavior, medical and health issues from an evolutionary and cross-species perspective. Not afraid to anthropomorphize, she even sees molecules as characters in little plays; the decadence of orchids, she says, would make Oscar Wilde wilt. Other topics introduce the latest discoveries in molecular biology and the work of female scientists. From cockroaches to cheetahs, DNA to elephant dung, Angier gives us intimate and dramatic portraits of nature that readers will find rewarding. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Angier, a Pulitzer Prize^-winning science writer for the New York Times, admits that she anthropomorphizes "shamelessly," a perspective that imbues her marvelous essays with a palpable delight in life's madcap ingenuity. Not only does every creature, even a roundworm, have consciousness, even personality, but under Angier's perspicacious scrutiny, so do molecules. Although terrified of cockroaches as a child, Angier has become a champion of roaches and their ilk--" the bloodsuckers, the low lowlifes, and the brutes" --and writes glowingly about such intriguing creatures as scorpions, pit vipers, and parasites. She has organized her widely varied and snappily composed essays under such headings as "Loving" (monogamy is not evolution's favored practice), "Dancing" (DNA's graceful and efficient choreography), "Slithering" (creepy crawlers), "Adapting" (the importance of play in the development of muscle tissue and the brain), "Healing" (what menstruation really achieves), "Creating" (the indisputable link between art and madness), and "Dying." In every essay, Angier offers us something new to ponder, whether she's proving that dolphins aren't cute, describing androstenedione, the female equivalent of testosterone, or explaining how joy actually promotes health. Donna Seaman

Review
"More than ever, we need good interpreters (of science), and Natalie Angier is one who is constitutionally incapable of writing a boring sentence." (The New York Times )

"Intimate and dramatic portraits of nature." (Publishers Weekly, Starred )