The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2000

With The Best American Science and Nature Writing, Houghton Mifflin expands its stellar Best American series with a volume that honors our long and distinguished history of publishing the best writers in these fields.
David Quammen, together with series editor Burkhard Bilger, has assembled a remarkable group of writers whose selections appeared in periodicals from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, SCIENCE, and THE NEW YORKER to PUERTO DEL SOL and DOUBLETAKE. Among the acclaimed writers represented in this volume are Richard Preston on “The Demon in the Freezer,” John McPhee bidding “Farewell to the Nineteeth Century,” Oliver Sacks remembering the “Brilliant Light” of his boyhood, and Wendell Berry going “Back to the Land.” Also including such literary lights as Anne Fadiman, David Guterson, Edward Hoagland, Natalie Angier, and Peter Matthiessen, this new collection presents selections bound together by their timelessness.

David Quammen, a former Rhodes scholar, has written the highly acclaimed SONG OF THE DODO (1997: Simon & Schuster), a series of books based on his columns for OUTSIDE magazine, and three novels. All of his nonfiction books are still in print. His writing for OUTSIDE garnered that magazine a National Magazine Award. Although he's likely to be found conducting research anywhere from Rumania to Congo, he lives in Bozeman, Montana. Burkhard Bilger is a senior editor at DISCOVER magazine and a former editor for THE SCIENCES. He is completing a book of essays on the South for Scribner's,based on an article that appeared in Harper's. He has written many articles for The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The New York Times, and other periodicals.