From
ThriftBooks-Reno, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since May 25, 2012
Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1887178007I3N00
Driven by instinct, the graceful Eskimo curlew flies its nine-thousand-mile route from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America and back again. Bodsworth conveys the mechanics of this single bird's remarkable flight and its instinctive search for others of its kind. The lone survivor comes to stand for the entirety of a lost species, and indeed for all in nature that is endangered.
Review: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin found this slim 1955 novel on a shelf in the house of friends, and, struck with the "plain, succinct evocation and beauty" of Fred Bodsworth's writing, suggested its reissue to a publisher. This is a quick, elegant, devastating read. The Eskimo curlew was a species of shorebird that migrated (and perhaps, in extremely small numbers, still migrates) south from arctic Canada every fall, in a flight that took it eastward across Canada, and then, after feeding, south over the Atlantic to South America--this latter journey nearly 2,500 miles of nonstop flight. The curlew was almost unique among shorebirds for its ability to make this grueling passage.
Bodsworth, a respected ornithologist, makes us care about his fictional bird protagonist--a lone curlew in search of a mate--while still cautiously riding the line between description and anthropomorphism. Of his curlew preparing for a mate, he writes: "He waited within the borders of his territory, flying in tightening circles and calling excitedly as the other bird came nearer. The female was coming. The three empty summers that the male had waited vainly and alone on his breeding territory were a vague, tormenting memory, now almost lost in a brain so keenly keyed to instinctive responses that there was little capacity for conscious thought or memory."
The demise of this species at the hands of hunters and hungry consumers was so rapid and thorough that the "millions that darkened the sky" in Newfoundland in the 1870s during their annual migration were reduced to only a few lone fliers by the 1890s. An afterword by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann and line drawings by Abigail Rorer add context to this remarkable book. --Maria Dolan
Title: Last of the Curlews
Publisher: Counterpoint
Publication Date: 1995
Binding: Hardcover
Illustrator: Rorer, Abigail
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Seller: Evergreen Goodwill, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
hardcover. Condition: Good. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). Seller Inventory # mon0000633834
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00100195140
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00100940549
Seller: ThriftBooks-Reno, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1887178007I4N00
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1887178007I4N00
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1887178007I4N00
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). Missing dust jacket; Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1887178007I5N01
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). Missing dust jacket; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1887178007I3N01
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1887178007I3N00
Seller: Lost Time Books, Brattleboro, VT, U.S.A.
hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Rorer, Abigail (illustrator). 1955 first edition. No dust jacket. VG. Very light wear. Name stamped to ffep. Text is clean. Seller Inventory # 122122-35