Thursday, November 3, 2011

Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet

  • ISBN13: 9780802119766
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
The bestselling author of Turtle Moon and Practical Magic tells her most seductive and mesmerizing tale yet--the story of March Murray, who returns to her small Massachusetts hometown after nineteen years, encountering her childhood sweetheart...and discovering the heartbreaking and complex truth about their reckless and romantic love.

"A sound addition to an impressive body of work."--Boston Globe

"Sumptuous prose."--Denver Post

"Here on Earth is Hoffman's twelfth novel, and the spell she casts is stronger than ever."--Orlando Sentinel

* Includes a Reader's Guide

The New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection...with a Reade! r's Guide included.Oprah Book Club® Selection, March 1998: Here on Earth is set in motion when March Murray and her teenage daughter travel from their California home to New England. Their stay is to be brief. Judith Dale, her childhood housekeeper-cum-foster mother, has died, and March must set things to right and get out of gloomy Jenkintown as quickly as possible. "Five days tops," she reassures her scientist husband. Instead, she is pulled back into the arms of Hollis, her first love--an avaricious, Heathcliff-like individual who radiates sulfur and cruelty. "She left and didn't come back, not even when he called her, and yet here she is, on this dark night; here and no place else." In this deep fable of loss and control, love and fear, Alice Hoffman allows us into her characters' cores and makes us wish their fortunes were happier. Here on Earth is filled with wisdom, what-ifs, and animals who seem, if not to know more than human bei! ngs, at least to know how to shy from danger.
Beginning at! the mom ent of creation with the Big Bang, Here on Earth explores the evolution of Earth from a galactic cloud of dust and gas to a planet with a metallic core and early signs of life within a billion years of being created. In a compelling narrative, Flannery describes the formation of the Earth’s crust and atmosphere, as well as the transformation of the planet’s oceans from toxic brews of metals (such as iron, copper, and lead) to life-sustaining bodies covering 70 percent of the planet’s surface. Life, Flannery shows, first appeared in these oceans in the form of microscopic plants and bacteria, and these metals served as catalysts for the earliest biological processes known to exist. From this starting point, Flannery tells the fascinating story of the evolution of our own species, exploring several early human species—from the diminutive creatures (the famed hobbits) who lived in Africa around two million years ago to Homo erectus—before turning hi! s attention to Homo sapiens. Drawing on Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Russell Wallace’s theories of evolution and Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, Here on Earth is a dazzling account of life on our planet.

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