Of Time And Turtles: Mending The World, Shell By Shattered Shell
Purchase This Book At:
Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * AMAZON EDITOR’S PICK and BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * INDIE BESTSELLER * A SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE’S BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR * THE WASHINGTON POST’S BEST NONFICTION OF THE YEAR PICK * A NEW SCIENTIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR *THE PERFECT GIFT FOR NATURE LOVERS * INCLUDES GORGEOUS ARTWORK *
“Montgomery’s heart-tugging conversations with teammates and her commitment to helping an octogenarian named Fire Chief reveal turtles to be perfect conduits for meditations on aging, disability and chosen family.” —Scientific American
National Book Award finalist for The Soul of an Octopus and New York Times bestseller Sy Montgomery turns her journalistic curiosity to the wonder and wisdom of our long-lived cohabitants—turtles—and through their stories of hope and rescue, reveals to us astonishing new perspectives on time and healing. For fans of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year and An Immense World.
When acclaimed naturalist Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson arrive at Turtle Rescue League, they are greeted by hundreds of turtles recovering from injury and illness. Endangered by cars and highways, pollution and poachers, these turtles—with wounds so severe that even veterinarians would have dismissed them as fatal—are given a second chance at life. The League’s founders, Natasha and Alexxia, live by one motto: Never give up on a turtle.
But why turtles? What is it about them that inspires such devotion? Ancient and unhurried, long-lived and majestic, their lineage stretches back to the time of the dinosaurs. Some live to two hundred years, or longer. Others spend months buried under cold winter water. Montgomery turns to these little understood yet endlessly surprising creatures to probe the eternal question: How can we make peace with our time?
In pursuit of the answer, Sy and Matt immerse themselves in the delicate work of protecting turtle nests, incubating eggs, rescuing sea turtles, and releasing hatchlings to their homes in the wild. We follow the snapping turtle Fire Chief on his astonishing journey as he battles against injuries incurred by a truck.
Hopeful and optimistic, Of Time and Turtles is an antidote to the instability of our frenzied world. Elegantly blending science, memoir, and philosophy, and drawing on cultures from across the globe, this compassionate portrait of injured turtles and their determined rescuers invites us all to slow down and slip into turtle time.
Sy Montgomery, described by the Boston Globe as “part Emily Dickinson, part Indiana Jones,” has had remarkable adventures in her pursuit of understanding the natural world. She has been chased by a silverback gorilla in Zaire, swum with piranhas and pink dolphins in the Amazon, worked among 18,000 snakes in Canada, and narrowly escaped a tiger in India. Her research has taken her across the globe, from Mongolia’s Altai Mountains in search of snow leopards to Papua New Guinea’s cloud forests to track tree kangaroos. No place is too remote when it comes to sharing the true stories of animals with readers around the world.
Montgomery is the author of the national bestseller The Good Good Pig, along with 15 other acclaimed nonfiction books. She writes for both print and broadcast media to reach as many people as possible at what she sees as a pivotal moment in human history. “We are on the cusp of either destroying this sweet, green Earth or revolutionizing the way we understand the rest of animate creation,” she says. For her, it’s an essential time to explore and highlight the connections we share with other creatures.