A trove of shark lore, a suspenseful adventure yarn, and a decent man's account of the way other decent men behave toward one another when they are under great pressure

Analytical, truthful and intimately personal... Throughout one learns considerably about the history of sharks, whales, professional divers, and other such creatures of the sea... Matthiessen is a most qualified observer of men and nature

For its natural history, for its persistent courage and for its terrifying portrait of White Death, this book... will live in the memory of all who read it

Peter Matthiessen is beyond dispute the best nature writer working today

Moving and magical...a fascinating story...touching, funny and written with warmth and compassion

Inspirational. A heart-warming read for anyone interested in wildlife and conservation

Africa has never been more vividly described...I read it straight through and it nearly broke my heart...her warnings about the decline of wildlife should be heeded the world over

It's the clearest and most beautifully written introduction to science I've ever read. Again and again I found myself saying "Oh! So that's how genes work!" (or stars, or tectonic plates, or all the other things he explains). Explanations I thought I knew were clarified; things I never understood were made clear for the first time

The Magic of Reality provides a beautiful, accessible and wide ranging volume that addresses the questions that all of us have about the universe...written with the masterful and eloquently literate style of perhaps the best popular expositor of science, Richard Dawkins, and delightfully illustrated by Dave McKean. What more could anyone ask for?

This book may be exactly what's needed to increase science literacy for readers of all ages

This book is primarily aimed at teenagers, but plenty of adults will get a kick out of it too...McKean's drawings bring the text to life brilliantly ... Dawkins writes convincingly about everything from chemistry to statistics

Dawkins uses a simple, brilliant technique highly appealing to young and old

Few scientists manage to reach a huge popular audience. Even among them Richard Dawkins is distinctive for the clarity and elegance of his prose. The Magic of Reality... will be appreciated by inquisitive children while illuminating much for the adult general reader.

This is not a book about the end of the world but about an imagined beginning ...The results of this huge thought-experiment are both fascinating and surprising. Fascinating for what they tell us about the impermanence of the works of man, and surprising for the simple reason that it soon becomes clear that our world would carry on regardless, indifferent to our demise

Weisman's gripping fantasy will make most readers hope that at least some of us can stick around long enough to see how it all turns out

Engrossing

An idea that is so lateral and clever, so powerfully evocative and masterfully executed that the only appropriate response is fervent envy

A wonderful idea ... a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book

Fascinating, absorbing

A quick, absorbing read - a summer beach book with brains

If you can stomach only one end-of-the world-as-we-know it story this summer, none is more audacious or interesting than Alan Weisman's The World Without Us

His is an extraordinary story laced with tragedy

[Root's] life story, vividly related here, is crammed with incident and adventure. Curious, creative and fearless, he has diced with death on numerous occasions and been mauled several times in his efforts to capture the daily lives of everything from silver-back gorillas to leopards in the wild on film. A gripping account of a life well lived