WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BEAST IN THE GARDEN
Weaving together deep research,
meticulous reporting, vivid characterization, disciplined prose, informative
political and historical asides, lucid science, incisive wit, and narrative
pacing as smooth and suspenseful as a stalking mountain lion, Baron has created
a wily page-turner....
Boston Globe
March 29, 2004
For full review, click
here.
The Beast in the Garden almost reads like a crime
novel. The book moves through the days leading up to the jogger's attack,
and each chapter ends on a cliff-hanging note.
Seattle Times
December 28, 2003
For full review, click
here.
Take Peter Benchley's best-selling Jaws, move it to
the Colorado Front Range, add a group of nature-loving citizens and you have The Beast in the Garden.
The compelling, tightly written account is a nonfiction story of what happens
when two highly evolved predators, man and mountain lion, attempt to share the
same space.
Denver Post
November 9, 2003
Baron explores what it means that lions are repopulating
developed areas with pollution declining, wilderness acreage expanding, and
lion hunting forbidden, there will be ever-more [cougars] in American and
Canadian exurban areas.
Gregg Easterbrook, The New Republic Online
December 23, 2003
For full review, click
here.
The theme of the artificiality of the wilderness around
Boulder runs throughout The Beast in the Garden, as does the idea that by
romanticizing this artificial wilderness and its supposed 'naturalness,'
Boulder's citizens were shirking their responsibility to manage it properly and
were refusing to understand their role in creating the conditions that had led
to the return of cougars.
Harper's
March 2005
[Baron] crafts a real page-turner.... [H]e does a public
service by presenting the harsh reality of what happens when wild creatures
become habituated to humans.
Audubon
March 2004
For full review, click
here.
David Baron has done an extraordinary job of scoping out
the personalities on each side of the issue.
National Geographic Adventure
November 2003
The Beast in the Garden
is told like a whodunit, in reverse. From
the beginning, we know the identity of the killer: a 100-pound adult male
mountain lion spotted near the eviscerated corpse of an 18-year-old jogger in
the Rocky Mountain foothills west of Denver in 1991. Baron sets out to
uncover how and why an animal known to biologists to be nocturnal and elusive,
likely to flee if and when it is seen, came to pounce upon a high school student
out for a run during fifth period, just after a lunch of pepperoni pizza at the
local 7-Eleven.
Salon.com
January 14, 2004
For full review, click
here.
A book that grabs its readers and does not let them go
until the last page.
New Scientist
January 8, 2005
For full review, click
here.
[R]ead the compelling tale woven in The Beast in the Garden:
A Modern Parable of Man and Nature by David Baron. It's about
environmentalism either gone terribly wrong or brilliantly correct, depending on
your perspective. The Beast in the Garden leaves it up to you to
decide.
Providence Journal
January 14, 2004
The deeper lesson of Baron's story
is that we can no longer escape our profound influence on nature.... Instead of
idealizing intact (or apparently intact) landscapes, The Beast in the Garden
untangles our assumptions about those landscapes, helping to clarify the
fascinating and often disturbing
connections between humans and nature.
Grist Magazine
January 20, 2004
For full review, click
here.
Never before have so many people lived so close to so many
potentially dangerous animals while simultaneously lacking the desire to
exterminate them. The potential consequences of that historically unique
set of circumstances form the theme of a gripping, well-researched new book by
David Baron.
Ventura County Star
January 15, 2004
The book calls itself a parable, and there are certainly
many messages here. The first, optimistic message is that mountain lion
populations are recovering rapidly, and that they are able to adapt to the
modern, human-altered landscape of the American West. The second message
is that the modern American love affair with wilderness is based on a total
delusion.... [T]his book is a highly recommended read that serves as a vital
reality check.
Wildlife Biology
June 2005
For full review, click
here.
Written with the dramatic flourish of a thriller, Baron's
fascinating book is a cautionary tale of what happens when we destroy animal
habitats: eventually, we are forced to co-exist, and, while animals may struggle
to adapt to our environment, we are totally unprepared for life in close
proximity to them.
The Ecologist
February 2004
If you can't get to nature, live in a city where nature
comes to you: That's the approach Boulder has taken.... Baron chronicles the
various [cougar] attacks on pets and humans which surrounded the city in 1991,
leading up to the inevitable killing. He also addresses the larger issues,
grappling with modern man's relationship with nature as the urbanization of
wilderness continues, and how humans need to reconcile policies of
'non-interference' with the equally important need that we don't end up eaten.
Toronto Star
July 12, 2005
Baron uses all the elements of fiction to create an
exciting narrative of actual events.... It is a true story, one in which neither
cougars nor humans are the villains. Neither cougars nor humans are the
heroes. They are only victims the cougars of their own predatory nature
and humans of their refusal to understand the food chain, their place in it, or
the reality of nature.
Virginia Quarterly Review
Summer 2005
For full review, click
here
and scroll down page.
One of the best sci-tech books of 2003.
Library Journal
March 1, 2004
For complete list, click
here.
In The Beast in the Garden,
David Baron weaves a compelling parable of man and animal, of the Old West and
the New West, of wildlife that is no longer wild.... [T]he author shows how
mountain lions, once enemies to be exterminated, have become revered symbols of
a wilderness that no longer truly exists.
High Country News
February 16, 2004
For full review, click
here.
The Beast in the Garden reads like a script from
the television show 'Law and Order: Criminal Intent.' The reader pretty much
knows who dunnit, with what and where, but the why is a little more elusive.
Baron's mystery, the story of how 18-year-old Scott Lancaster came to be mauled
and eaten by a mountain lion on a sunny day in 1991, starts long before the man
was born, right about the time Europeans arrived in North America.
Colorado Daily
March 15, 2005
The Beast in the Garden is an important cautionary
tale of what lies ahead.... [B]e prepared to find your thoughts returning often
to the lesson taught in this book.
Journal of Mammalogy
February 2005
There are books so thought-provoking that you interrupt
your reading to get up and pace the floor, muttering to yourself. This
book is one of them.
Adelaide Review
November 26, 2004
For full review, click
here.
A thoughtful investigation into the causes behind a deadly
mountain lion attack here on the Front Range back in 1991. It's paced like
a thriller.... a must read.
Boulder Daily Camera
November 14, 2004
It's a chilling, cautionary tale. It's also a terrific
read, and I strongly recommend it.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
April 25, 2004
For full review, click
here.
In one of the very best accounts of the conflict between
doing what is thought of as being environmentally correct versus using common
sense, David Baron in his recent book The Beast In the Garden recounts
how Boulder residents tolerated mountain lions sleeping on their porch decks and
even killing deer in their front yards. These residents then were
surprised in 1991 when a mountain lion stalked, killed and partially ate... a
teenager from a nearby community who had been jogging behind his high school.
Plattsburgh Press-Republican
April 25, 2004
Useful to anyone interested in predators, the urban/rural
fringe, or conflicts between development and wildlife in the West in general.
As a 'modern parable of man and nature,' it also serves as fair warning of the
consequences of believing humans can live in nature without altering it in
unpredictable ways, even with history as a guide.
Environmental History
October 2004
For full review, click
here.
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