Into the Porcupine Cave and Other Odysseys: Adventures of an Occasional Naturalist

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National Geographic, 1999 - Literary Criticism - 247 pages
When William Warner's first book, "Beautiful Swimmers," was published more than 20 years ago, Larry McMurtry hailed it as "a new kind of classic...modest, intimate, and very personal." And a classic it proved to be, winning a Pulitzer Prize and the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers who found its blend of elegance, engaging insight, and soft-spoken erudition to be irresistible.

"Into the Porcupine Cave" finds William Warner still at the top of his form: charming, knowledgeable, adventurous, and ever alert to the wonderful variety of the world around us. He doesn't look at things, he looks into them, and shares what he has learned with a simple, graceful eloquence that combines a childlike sense of discovery and an adult sophistication all the more winning for its modesty. With quiet wisdom and infectious wonder, William Warner throws open the windows of the natural world and teaches us to see.

William Warner's adventures have taken him from the southernmost point of South America to North America's northernmost permanent Eskimo community. He's been mobbed by howler monkeys in the Guatemalan rain forest, cruised the Florida Keys in the company of hardcore birders, and experienced the solitude of Maine's most isolated lighthouse. Always and everywhere, he has looked around him with the fascination of a born naturalist.

From inside the book

Contents

A PROLOGUE BY THE SEA
1
INTO THE PORCUPINE CAVE
16
SHORTY SLIM and the Cave Demon
35
Copyright

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