James Morrow's Galápagos Regained centers on the fictional Chloe Bathurst, an unemployed Victorian actress who finds work on Charles Darwin's estate, nurturing the strange birds, exotic lizards, and giant tortoises he brought back from his trip around the world. When Chloe gets wind of the Great God Contest, sponsored by the Percy Bysshe Shelley Society—£10,000 to the first petitioner who can prove or disprove the existence of a Supreme Being—she decides that Mr. Darwin's materialist theory of speciation might just turn the trick. (If Nature gave God nothing to do, maybe He was never around in the first place.) Before she knows it, her ambitions send her off on a wild adventure—a voyage by brigantine to Brazil, a steamboat trip up the Amazon, a hot-air balloon flight across the Andes—bound for the Galápagos archipelago, where she intends to collect the live specimens through which she might demonstrate evolutionary theory to the contest judges.
James Morrow's Galápagos Regained centers on the fictional Chloe Bathurst, an unemployed Victorian actress who finds work on Charles Darwin's estate, nurturing the strange birds, exotic lizards, and giant tortoises he brought back from his trip around the world. When Chloe gets wind of the Great God Contest, sponsored by the Percy Bysshe Shelley Society—£10,000 to the first petitioner who can prove or disprove the existence of a Supreme Being—she decides that Mr. Darwin's materialist theory of speciation might just turn the trick. (If Nature gave God nothing to do, maybe He was never around in the first place.) Before she knows it, her ambitions send her off on a wild adventure—a voyage by brigantine to Brazil, a steamboat trip up the Amazon, a hot-air balloon flight across the Andes—bound for the Galápagos archipelago, where she intends to collect the live specimens through which she might demonstrate evolutionary theory to the contest judges.
Darwin meets Hitchcock in this true-crime tale of paradise found and lost. A extraordinary portrait of a 1930s murder mystery as strange and alluring as the famous archipelago itself. Fleeing conventional society, a Berlin doctor and his mistress start a new life on uninhabited Floreana Island. But after the international press sensationalizes the exploits of the island's 'Adam and Eve,' others flock there, including a self-styled Swiss Family Robinson.
Sail to the exotic Galapagos Islands with Herman Melville, author of "Moby-Dick." Let History and Legend, Fiction and Fact, Myth and Mystery swirl around you as you enter "The Encantadas," a unique island world stretching along our planet's Equator. Discover teeming seabird rookeries, stark volcanic landscapes, and world famous giant tortoises . . . Meet buccaneers and explorers, colonists and castaways, whalers and naturalists . . . Explore these Enchanted Isles with one of America's greatest writers . . . Enrich your once-in-a-lifetime visit to . . . The Galapagos Islands. Travelers have been arriving in the Galapagos Islands since at least 1535. While naturalist Charles Darwin made these volcanic peaks famous, Spanish explorers, English buccaneers, American whalers, Ecuadorian colonists, and a United States President all put in appearances here over the centuries. Herman Melville was one such visitor. He first glimpsed the Galapagos Islands as a young seaman on the whaler "Acushnet" out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Years later, after the failure of his novel "Moby-Dick," he tried to regain his lost popularity with the reading public by writing a series ten of magazine sketches recalling the strange worlds he found in these Enchanted Isles. This current book was created for today's visitor-or armchair visitor. Bring it with you, or read it before you leave home. Enhance your enjoyment of the Galapagos Islands with these glimpses of its captivating natural and human history written over 150 years ago by that famous fellow traveler. Discover . . . - Herman Melville's ten sketches called "The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles." - Forty of Moses Michelsohn's striking b&w photographs (in color in the ebook) from the Galapagos islands: birds, iguanas, giant tortoises, sea lions, exotic plants, and volcanic landscapes. - Lynn Michelsohn's introduction to the work, and to each individual sketch. Enjoy your visit to the Galapagos Islands! About the Authors Herman Melville wrote in the genre that has been called "dark romanticism." "The Encantadas," like "Moby-Dick" (considered by many to be the best novel ever written) and his well respected novella "Billy Budd," draws on his shipboard experiences in the South Seas as a young man. Lynn Michelsohn has written such diverse books as "Roswell, Your Travel Guide to the UFO Capital of the World!" and "Gullah Ghosts, Stories and Folktales from the South Carolina Lowcountry." Her longstanding interests in both the Galapagos Islands and Herman Melville led to this work. Like Melville, biologist and wildlife photographer Moses Michelsohn found tortoises on the Galapagos Islands fascinating. Tree frogs in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and the southeastern United States remain his primary research interest, however.
A goldfish named Ian is falling from the 27th-floor balcony on which his fishbowl sits. He's longed for adventure, so when the opportunity arises, he escapes from his bowl, clears the balcony railing and finds himself airborne. Plummeting toward the street below, Ian witnesses the lives of the Seville on Roxy residents. There's the handsome grad student, his girlfriend, and the other woman; the construction worker who feels trapped by a secret; the building's super who feels invisible and alone; the pregnant woman on bed rest who craves a forbidden ice cream sandwich; the shut-in for whom dirty talk, and quiche, are a way of life; and home-schooled Herman, a boy who thinks he can travel through time. Though they share time and space, they have something even more important in common: each faces a decision that will affect the course of their lives. Within the walls of the Seville are stories of love, new life, and death, of facing the ugly truth of who one has been and the beautiful truth of who one can become. Sometimes taking a risk is the only way to move forward with our lives. As Ian the goldfish knows, "An entire life devoted to a fishbowl will make one die an old fish with not one adventure had." Bradley Somer's Fishbowl is at turns funny and heartbreaking and you will, no doubt, fall in love with his unforgettable characters.
Jack Sperry is a loyal citizen of Veritas, the City of Truth, until tragedy strikes his life, and he must hide from truth in order to save his son's life.
