At 06:51 PM 3/25/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi,
>Funny coincidence...I just saw that book in the bargain section
>of the local book store and was debating buing it at lunch today.
>Is ist good?
 
Amazon.com blurb:
 
This remarkable memoir by the great marine biologist Geerat
Vermeij, who is perhaps the world's leading authority on marine
mollusks and who has been blind since the age of three, resonates
on several levels: it is, first of all, a profound and vivid
exploration of the current state of evolutionary theory; secondly,
an engaging memoir of scientific exploration carried out in exotic
locales; and finally, an acute examination of what it means
to be sightless. Vermeij's extraordinary life reads like that
of one of the great early biological explorers, whose theories
were all based on extensive fieldwork in remote spots. It is
also an inspiring tale of a man who, thanks to a remarkably
devoted and intelligent family and his own inexhaustible scientific
curiosity, overcame his handicap to further the sum of human knowledge.
 
My opinion:
 
I am an amateur conchologist with no scientific training. I enjoyed the
book. The autobiography threads were fascinating- how Vermeij's
interest in mollusks was sparked; his parents' endeavors to support
Geerat's scientific curiosity; leaving home to attend a boarding school
for the blind.
 
Then, as he attended college, it was interesting to see how the author
generated his thesis as he decided to focus on evolutionary biology.
Since I have no training in any of the sciences, I was fearful that
there would be parts of the book which would be incomprehensible to
me. Not so. He poses interesting questions based on his extensive
observations and field work, but poses them in such a way as to bring
the reader along with him, no matter their level of expertise in the field.
 
Finally, toward the end, Vermeij discussed his advocacy for the blind and
other topics (the importance of museums, the place of
educational and scientific journals...) and once again wrote clearly and
forcefully enough to draw the reader in.
 
I especially enjoyed the field work anecdotes: jumping from a small dinghy
amidst pounding surf to the safety of shore, close encounters with a moray
eel, finding the lone snail on the beach and discovering it is a new species...
 
On the whole, it's a book to be owned. I returned it to the library last week,
but am still thinking about many of his questions. I'd like to have it as a
reference as I go ahead and read his other book so many of the kind
Conch-Lers have been recommending to me: A Natural History of Shells.
 
Elizabeth