Vanishing Treasures

A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures

by Katherine Rundell

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Pub Date Nov 12 2024 | Archive Date Nov 26 2024

Doubleday Books | Doubleday

Nonfiction (Adult) | Outdoors & Nature | Science

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Description

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF FALL: WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, CHICAGO TRIBUNE & MORE • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Katherine Rundell comes a “rare and magical book” (Bill Bryson) reckoning with the vanishing wonders of our natural world

"Extraordinary...For anyone whose capacity for wonder could use a jumpstart, Rundell's essays are essential reading."—Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

"In times like these, terror and rage will carry us only so far. We will also need unstinting, unceasing love. For the hard work that lies ahead, Ms. Rundell writes, 'Our competent and furious love will have to be what fuels us.' This is a book to help you fall in love." —Margaret Renkl, The New York Times

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction.

Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it’s not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what’s known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel.

But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes—to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures.

Beautifully illustrated, and full of inimitable wit and intellect, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.

Advance Praise

“A rare and magical book. I didn’t want it to end.” —Bill Bryson, author of The Body and A Walk in the Woods

“This world, even as we degrade it, remains almost unimaginably beautiful and interesting, as this remarkable bestiary makes clear. Here are a bunch of very very good reasons to actually try and hold on to as much of the Pleistocene as we can.” —Bill McKibben, author The End of Nature

“A wondrous ode to nature’s astonishing beauty—and an elegy for all the life we are in the midst of destroying." —Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to Sex

“Exquisite and timely.” —Maggie O’Farrell, author of The Marriage Portrait

“A total miracle.” —Max Porter, author of Shy

“A loving and lovely book.” —Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall

“A rare and magical book. I didn’t want it to end.” —Bill Bryson, author of The Body and A Walk in the Woods

“This world, even as we degrade it, remains almost unimaginably beautiful and interesting...