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| The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking and the Search for Lost Species | 
| Author: Scott Weidensaul
Publisher: North Point Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $8.81
You Save: $7.19 (45%)
New (17) Collectible (1) from $8.81
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 89035
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0865476683
Dewey Decimal Number: 591.68
EAN: 9780865476684
ASIN: 0865476683
Publication Date: June 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Expedited shipping is not available for this item. Items are mailed via USPS media mail within 2 business days and should arrive 4-14 business days later.
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Product Description
“A thoughtful examination of the machinery of extinction . . . By turns harrowing and elegiac, thrilling and informative.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Three or four times an hour, eighty or more times a day, a unique species of plant or animal vanishes forever. And yet, every so often one of these lost species resurfaces. “Having adventures most of us can only dream about” (The Times-Picayune), Scott Weidensaul pursues stories of loss and recovery, of endurance against the odds, and of surprising resurrections.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 An excellent and inspiring read July 18, 2008
I've just finished reading this book for the fourth time, and although I've not left the house I feel like I've been around the world. The descriptions and language were haunting yet beautiful and make me yearn to turn back time. This is an absolutely inspiring work, and I hope to read more from this passionate and talented author soon.
ghost with trembling wings December 14, 2006
Quite an interesting book, and in some ways, rather haunting.There is a lot more to this book than the somewhat small size of it would seem.It is also somewhat engrossing.
 Dude, Where's My Book? August 22, 2006
1 out of 19 found this review helpful
Uh, like it's difficult to review a book that I haven't, like, received yet, dudes. Maybe if you didn't keep, like, pushing the delivery date to the right, I could maybe, like, have something more constructive to contribute.
A gorgeous mind-opener February 5, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
For 310 of the most engrossing pages about things that live on earth, you won't do much better than Scott Wiedensaul's The Ghost With Trembling Wings. I came at the book with virtually no science ability and only a passing knowledge of naturalism or species conservation, but it doesn't matter - Trembling Wings works so effectively because all it really requires to catch onto Wiedensaul's point of view is any sort of awe at the variety of organisms and the varied regions in which they show up. Wiedensaul's prose is transporting in the best way - he gives the mosquito-encrusted white reaches of Siberia the same impressive eloquence that he gives the rivers of Louisiana or the Mato Grasso region of Brazil. His eloquence is so surprising, he manages to find poetry in the everyday actions of species, fascinating or not. Check out this description simply of film footage of the Thylacine in Tasmania: "Though the thylacine was said to be stiff and awkward in its movements, this one seemed as graceful as the cramped, artificial surroundings would permit; the film showed a lithe, tapered animal, but to an eye used to a dog or wolf, the proportions seemed a bit off - the head looked too long and conical, the ears too small, the almost tubular tail too straight and stiff." It's written mastery like that that makes The Ghost With Trembling Wings as beautifully specific as it is evocatively universal, giving vivid breadth to the human need to penetrate the outside world in whatever form rouses our deepest passions.
excellent anthology August 8, 2005
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
of supposedly lost and newly rediscovered species. Weidensaul concentrates on the few selected species which have been catalogued as extinct, yet which anecdotal evidence tells us may still be out there. This is a wonderful book, full of travelogues and hope by the author in search of supposed mystery creatures, both likely and unlikely. He maintains a skeptical yet optimistic mind in his own searches and touches upon species as varied as the "extinct" Sempler's Warbler and the Loch Ness "monster". It is carefully and objectively written without a hint of sensationalism, but maintains an open discourse related to the species' possible existence. One of the top three "cryptozoology" guides; the other favorite of mine is Matthew Bille's book on a similar subject. Toss the rest as National Enquirer material, including the venerable Heuvelmans' tome.
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