Turtle Planet

Book excerpt: Beautifully written, Turtle Planet - Fables and Facts for Earth's Last Days is a work of Philosophical fact and fiction. Like the recent best-selling and award-winning H is Hawk, and The Soul of the Octopus, and the 1992 classic Ishmael, T urtle Planet - Fables and Facts for Earth's Last Days by Monk Yun Rou deeply explores the bond between humans and animals - the wisdom they teach us, the wounds they can heal, and the role we play in their destruction. Drawing on 50 years of loving and husbanding turtles, from the car-sized giant Leatherback turtle to the Central Asian tortoise, Monk Yun Rou renders the wonders and suffering of the natural world through the eyes of 18 exotic turtles, whom he visits in flights of Daoist meditation. Finding them in deserts, jungles, rivers, streams, savannahs, and even an airport restroom, he listens as they share the triumphs and tragedies of their lives, sounding the alarm of what climate change, global extinction, human intervention, and environmental devastation really mean to their worlds and to ours. Including an informational glossary and description of each turtle at the end of the book, Turtle Planet - Fables and Facts for Earth's Last Days mixes science, fantasy, magical realism, fables, and truth in a joyful, irrepressibly creative, and utterly unique literary experience. It is a must for any reader who loves nature, cherishes animals, and celebrates ideas.