The Unexpected Universe

“No one has ever managed to make the pursuit of knowledge feel more soulful or more immediate than Loren Eiseley . . . ” —Ben Cosgrove, The Daily Beast At the height of a distinguished career as a paleontologist, Loren Eiseley turned from fieldwork and scientific publication to the personal essay. Here, in The Unexpected Universe, he displays his far-reaching knowledge and searching curiosity about the natural world, and the qualities that led many to hail him as a “modern Thoreau.” Fascinating accounts of the journeys of Odysseus, Captain Cook, and Charles Darwin frame Eiseley’s more modest wanderings as a suburban naturalist, attentive to the lives of small creatures. Sometimes he travels no further than the local dump. And yet, like Homer’s hero or these great explorers, he continually finds a universe “not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

A collection of the author's favorite essays and poems. This volume includes selections that span Eiseley's entire writing career and provide a sampling of the author as naturalist, poet, scientist, and humanist. "Loren Eiseley's work changed my life" (Ray Bradbury). Introduction by W. H. Auden.

A naturalist explores the mystical symbolism of nature as he reflects upon man's evolution and scientific endeavor

In this first study of Doris Lessing's science fiction, Fishburn devotes a chapter to each of Lessing's seven novels. Her major argument is that Lessing uses these novels to change our perception of reality by describing worlds that are simultaneously similar to and different from our own. Of particular importance is the fact that each narrator, by functioning as an intermediary or guide-leader, helps skeptical readers to experience the alien worlds of Lessing's imagination. As she traces the development of these seven narrators, Fishburn shows how they eventually fulfill the role of the idealized author Lessing described in The Small Personal Voice. In examining how these texts challenge us to change, Fishburn discusses the influence of Marxist and Sufi thought on Lessing and also points out the striking similarity betwen Lessing's philosophy of wholeness and the discoveries of modern physics.

A naturalist explores the mystical symbolism of nature as he reflects upon man's evolution and scientific endeavor

Marcelo Gleiser has had a passion for science and fishing since he was a boy growing up on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. Now a world-famous theoretical physicist with hundreds of scientific articles and several books of popular science to his credit, he felt it was time to connect with nature in less theoretical ways. After seeing a fly-fishing class on the Dartmouth College green, he decided to learn to fly-fish, a hobby, he says, that teaches humility. In The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected, Gleiser travels the world to scientific conferences, fishing wherever he goes. At each stop, he ponders how in the myriad ways physics informs the act of fishing; how, in its turn, fishing serves as a lens into nature's inner workings; and how science engages with questions of meaning and spirituality, inspiring a sense of mystery and awe of the not yet known. Personal and engaging, The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is a scientist's tribute to nature, an affirmation of humanity's deep connection with and debt to Earth, and an exploration of the meaning of existence, from atom to trout to cosmos.

Anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley blends scientific knowledge and imaginative vision in this story of man.