Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art

Noted herpatologist and Cornell University professor Greene’s vibrant blending of memoir and natural history heightens our appreciation of ecological preservation by demonstrating how curiosity becomes science, and by extension how what we understand becomes what we value. Striking evocations of his Texas and Oklahoma childhood reveal a lifelong fascination with reptiles, specifically snakes, which launched a career in academia and research circling the globe. Some may flinch at Greene’s close encounters with snakes, but armchair eco-tourists will savor his rousing, splendidly depicted forays into Amazonian rainforests and the jungles of the Congo. While scientific specificity abounds, the book also brings his adventures and fellow adventurers boisterously to life, in the tradition of Jim Harrison and Norman Maclean—writers Greene openly admires. His reflections on humanity’s interconnectedness with the Earth and all its inhabitants give an achingly beautiful expansiveness to his narrative, while quieter musings on the deaths of loved ones and the impact of his mentors find Greene reaching for soundly resonating poetry. Roomy enough to embrace black-tailed rattlesnakes, African bushmasters, and green anacondas alongside Pablo Neruda, Jackson Browne, and Immanuel Kant, Greene (Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature) succeeds in illuminating the world as a place of beauty, harmony, and danger, deeply interconnected and worthy of cherishing and preserving. 17 b&w photos. (Oct.)