Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.
"[The Sixth Extinction] is a wonderful book, and it makes very
clear that big, abrupt changes can happen; they're not outside the
realm of possibility. They have happened before, they can happen
again." --President Barack Obama
"Riveting . . . It is not possible to overstate the importance of
Kolbert's book." --San Francisco Chronicle "Arresting . . . Ms.
Kolbert shows in these pages that she can write with elegiac poetry
about the vanishing creatures of this planet, but the real power of
her book resides in the hard science and historical context she
delivers here, documenting the mounting losses that human beings
are leaving in their wake." --The New York Times "Surprisingly
breezy, entirely engrossing, and frequently entertaining . . .
Kolbert is a masterful, thought-provoking reporter." --The Boston
Globe "Your view of the world will be fundamentally changed. . . .
Kolbert is an astute observer, excellent explainer, and superb
synthesizer, and even manages to find humor in her subject matter."
--The Seattle Times "Powerful . . . An invaluable contribution to
our understanding." --Al Gore, The New York Times Book Review
"Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction
events in the Earth's history (think of the asteroid that wiped out
the dinosaurs), and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human
activity is leading to the sixth." --Bill Gates "[Kolbert] makes a
page-turner out of even the most sober and scientifically demanding
aspects of extinction." --New York Magazine "Ms. Kolbert's lively
account is thought-provoking." --The Wall Street Journal "[Kolbert]
grounds her stories in rigorous science and memorable characters
past and present, building a case that a mass extinction is
underway, whether we want to admit it or not." --Discover Magazine
"Throughout her extensive and passionately collected research,
Kolbert offers a highly readable, enlightening report on the global
and historical impact of humans . . . a highly significant
eye-opener rich in facts and enjoyment." --Kirkus (starred review)
"The factoids Kolbert tosses off about nature's incredible
variety--a frog that carries eggs in its stomach and gives birth
through its mouth, a wood stork that cools off by defecating on its
own legs--makes it heartbreakingly clear, without any heavy-handed
sermonizing from the author, just how much we lose when an animal
goes extinct. In the same way, her intrepid reporting from far-off
places--Panama, Iceland, Italy, Scotland, Peru, the Amazonian rain
forest of Brazil, and the remote one tree Island, off the coast of
Australia--gives us a sense of the earth's vastness and beauty."
--Bookforum "Kolbert accomplishes an amazing feat in her latest
book, which superbly blends the depressing facts associated with
rampant species extinctions and impending ecosystem collapse with
stellar writing to produce a text that is accessible, witty,
scientifically accurate, and impossible to put down." --Publishers
Weekly (starred review) "Rendered with rare, resolute, and
resounding clarity, Kolbert's compelling and enlightening report
forthrightly addresses the most significant topic of our lives."
--Booklist (starred review) "An epic, riveting story of our species
that reads like a scientific thriller--only more terrifying because
it is real. Like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Elizabeth Kolbert's
The Sixth Extinction is destined to become one of the most
important and defining books of our time." --David Grann, author of
The Lost City of Z "I tore through Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth
Extinction with a mix of awe and terror. Her long view of
extinction excited my joy in life's diversity -- even as she made
me aware how many species are currently at risk." --Dava Sobel,
author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter "With her usual lucid
and lovely prose, Elizabeth Kolbert lays out the sad and gripping
facts of our moment on earth: that we've become a geological force,
driving vast swaths of creation over the brink. A remarkable
addition to the literature of our haunted epoch." --Bill McKibben,
author Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist
"Elizabeth Kolbert's cautionary tale, The Sixth Extinction, offers
us a cogent overview of a harrowing biological challenge. The
reporting is exceptional, the contextualizing exemplary. Kolbert
stands at the forefront of what it means to be a socially
responsible American writer today." --Barry Lopez, author of Arctic
Dreams "The sixth mass extinction is the biggest story on Earth,
period, and Elizabeth Kolbert tells it with imagination, rigor,
deep reporting, and a capacious curiosity about all the wondrous
creatures and ecosystems that exist, or have existed, on our
planet. The result is an important book full of love and loss."
--David Quammen, author of The Song of the Dodo and Spillover
"Elizabeth Kolbert writes with an aching beauty of the impact of
our species on all the other forms of life known in this cold
universe. The perspective is at once awe-inspiring, humbling and
deeply necessary." --T.C. Boyle, author of San Miguel
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