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THE NINEMILE WOLVES

Bass continues his essays about Montana (Winter, 1991, etc.) with this masterful life history of a contemporary wolf pack. In the 19th-century West, Bass notes, wolves were relentlessly trapped, poisoned, and shot; between 1870 and 1877 alone, 700,000 wolves were killed just in Montana. When, in 1989 and for the first time in 60 years, a wolf pack (soon dubbed the ``Ninemile'' pack) appeared in Montana, outside of Glacier National Park, locals divided into two groups: those ``for'' wolves, and those ``against''—the latter motivated purely by money, Bass says. The fledgling pack consisted of a male, a female, and cubs. When a farmer's calf was attacked, the female was anonymously shot, despite evidence that the calf had been attacked by coyotes. Several months later, the male—who had been bringing his youngsters food—was fatally struck by a motor vehicle, and the US Fishery and Wildlife Service had to step in to feed the cubs. At this point in the narrative, Bass's observation that wolves' lives are inseparable from human politics becomes depressingly apparent. The Montana Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Preservation asked the USFWS to remove the pups because they might affect Montana's biggest cash crop: deer hunters. The USFWS declined, and soon the orphan pack had taught itself to hunt. But freedom was short-lived. When two heifers were found killed, the USFWS tranquilizer-darted the pack and relocated the wolves. At their new home, two were shot by ranchers (despite a $100,000/one-year penalty if caught), and the last female was placed in permanent captivity. Throughout this sad, short history, Bass vividly renders the viewpoint of these green-eyed, magnificent predators, able to bound 16 feet when pursuing moose or deer. ``Wolves are the most social mammal...except (maybe) for humans,'' Bass says. An essay as rare and beautiful as a wolf-sighting in the Montana woods. (Photographs and drawings—some seen.)

Pub Date: June 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-944439-47-0

Page Count: 192

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

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WHY FISH DON'T EXIST

A STORY OF LOSS, LOVE, AND THE HIDDEN ORDER OF LIFE

A quirky wonder of a book.

A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.

Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.

A quirky wonder of a book.

Pub Date: April 14, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020

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