The Heartbeat of the Wild
  • Published: 13 June 2023
  • ISBN: 9781426222078
  • Imprint: National Geographic
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $59.99

The Heartbeat of the Wild

Dispatches From Landscapes of Wonder, Peril, and Hope

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In this inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed author David Quammen journeys to places where civilization meets raw nature and explores the challenge of balancing the needs of both.

In this inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed author David Quammen journeys to places where civilization meets raw nature and explores the challenge of balancing the needs of both.

For more than two decades, award-winning science and nature writer David Quammen has traveled to Earth’s most far-flung and fragile destinations, sending back field notes from places caught in the tension between humans and the wild. This illuminating book features 20 of those assignments: elegantly written narratives, originally published in National Geographic magazine and updated for today, telling colorful and impassioned stories from some of the planet’s wildest locales. 

Quammen shares encounters with African elephants, chimpanzees, and gorillas (and their saviors, including Jane Goodall); the salmon of northeastern Russia and the people whose livelihood depends on them; the lions of Kenya and the villagers whose homes border on parks created to preserve the species; and the champions of rewilding efforts in southernmost South America, designed to rescue iconic species including jaguars and macaws.

With a new introduction, afterword, and notes framing each story, Quammen reminds us of the essential role played by wild nature at the heart of the planet.
  • Published: 13 June 2023
  • ISBN: 9781426222078
  • Imprint: National Geographic
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $59.99
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About the author

David Quammen

David Quammen's sixteen previous books include The Tangled Tree, The Song of the Dodo, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, and Spillover, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Premio Letterario Merck, in Rome. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside, among other magazines, and is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award.

Quammen shares a home in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife, Betsy Gaines Quammen, author of American Zion, and with two Russian wolfhounds, a cross-eyed cat, and a rescue python.

Visit him at DavidQuammen.com

portrait photo of David Quammen

Also by David Quammen

Spillover
Breathless
Yellowstone
The Chimp and the River
Ebola
Monster Of God
The Song Of The Dodo
See all

Praise for The Heartbeat of the Wild

"Focusing on efforts to protect extraordinary landscapes such as Botswana's Okavango Delta and 'great beasts' such as the lion, elephant, bonobo and chimpanzee, The Heartbeat of the Wild offers a bracing blend of boots-on-the-ground adventure and clear-eyed science, presented in prose that is vivid and passionate yet measurwed and graced with an occasional flash of humor."
— Wall Street Journal

"In his new book, The Heartbeat of the Wild, David Quammen guides us on a journey to remarkable places to meet remarkable people who live with remarkable wild animals. Throughout the journey – from 'the green abyss' of the Congo, to the sweeping plains of the Serengeti, to the wilds of Chile and Argentina – he makes a powerful and compelling case for the necessity of keeping nature’s wild heart beating. Only then will we and the planet thrive."
—Chris Johns, former Editor in Chief, National Geographic magazine

"David Quammen is the conservationist's author. Not only can he explain complex scientific issues using great storytelling that makes them stick, but he also has the ability to transmit the passion involved in exploration, research, and conservation."
—Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and founding director of Pristine Seas

"Distinctively combining the splendor of nature, conservation biology, and exciting adventures, Quammen’s tales read as though Indiana Jones joined forces with scientist-ecologist Edward O. Wilson."
—Booklist

"No matter where David Quammen goes, he finds a fascinating story. In The Heartbeat of the Wild he travels to some of the world's most amazing and difficult-to-reach places. Every piece in the book is a great adventure."
—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction and Under a White Sky