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An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin), he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of "natural productions"-he caught, skinned, and pickled 125,660 specimens, including 212 new species of birds and 900 new species of beetles. Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling, combining incisive biography and personal travelogue. He…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin), he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of "natural productions"-he caught, skinned, and pickled 125,660 specimens, including 212 new species of birds and 900 new species of beetles. Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling, combining incisive biography and personal travelogue. He examines themes about which Wallace cared deeply-women's power, why boys leave home, the need to collect, our relationship with other species, humanity's need to control nature and how this leads to nature destruction, arrogance, the role of ego and greed, white-brown and brown-brown colonialism, serendipity, passion, mysticism-and interprets them through his own filter with layers of humor, history, social commentary, and sometimes outrageous personal tales.
Autorenporträt
Bestselling author Paul Sochaczewski's highly acclaimed nonfiction books of personal travel include the five-volume Curious Encounters of the Human Kind series, An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles, The Sultan and the Mermaid Queen, Soul of the Tiger (with Jeff McNeely), and Searching for Ganesha. Gary Braver, bestselling author of Tunnel Vision, said Paul's work is "in the great tradition of Asian reporting. The humanity of Somerset Maugham, the adventure of Joseph Conrad, the perception of Paul Theroux, and a self-effacing voice uniquely his own." Paul's handbook for people who want to write their personal stories, Share Your Journey, is based on the personal writing workshops he runs in more than 20 countries. Redheads and EarthLove are fictional eco-thrillers, set in the rainforest of a mythical sultanate in Borneo.Paul is an American-French writer, writing coach, conservationist, and communications advisor to international non-governmental organizations. He lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and has lived and worked in more than 80 countries, including long stints in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.Paul served in the United States Peace Corps from 1969 to 1971, working as an education advisor in Sarawak, Malaysia. This exposure to Asia informed his writing, and as a result most of his work has a Southeast Asian theme. He was also founding creative director of J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Indonesia and Singapore.As head of creative services at WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature, 1981-1994, he created international public awareness campaigns to protect rainforests, wetlands, plants, and biological diversity, and managed the WWF Faith and Environment Network. With a MacArthur Foundation grant, from mid-1992 to mid-1993 he took a leave of absence from WWF to research environmental problems in the Pacific for the Environment Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu. He then worked for ten years as global communications director of the International Osteoporosis Foundation.