Margins
The Extinction Club book cover
The Extinction Club
2001
First Published
3.14
Average Rating
240
Number of Pages
For one thousand years, the Milu—an exotic species of deer with the neck of a camel, horns of a stag, feet of a cow, and tail of a donkey—existed only in the Chinese emperor’s private park in Beijing. But in the nineteenth century, a Basque missionary risked his life to obtain a specimen, then embalmed it and sent it to Paris. The preserved remains caused quite a stir, and soon every major nation in Europe possessed a Milu. But most died quickly, and due to war—most notably the Boxer Rebellion—they became extinct in their native habitat as well. Yet the eleventh duke of Bedford was devoted to preserving the Milu. Under his care at Woburn Abbey, a herd flourished, and nearly a century later, in 1986, part of the British herd was returned to China. In his fascinating tale, Robert Twigger poignantly recounts the story of this strange and rare animal while providing a riveting meditation on evolution, truth-telling, extinction, myth-making, and survival.
Avg Rating
3.14
Number of Ratings
106
5 STARS
9%
4 STARS
26%
3 STARS
42%
2 STARS
14%
1 STARS
8%
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Author

Robert Twigger
Robert Twigger
Author · 13 books

Robert Twigger is a British author who has been described as, 'a 19th Century adventurer trapped in the body of a 21st Century writer'. He attended Oxford University and later spent a year training at Martial Arts with the Tokyo Riot Police. He has won the Newdigate prize for poetry, the Somerset Maugham award for literature and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. In 1997, whilst on an expedition in Northern Borneo, he discovered a line of menhirs crossing into Kalimantan. In 1998 He was part of the team that caught the world's longest snake- documented in the Channel 4/National Geographic film and book Big Snake; later he was the leader of the expedition that was the first to cross Western Canada in a birchbark canoe since 1793. Most recently, in 2009-2010, he led an expedition that was the first to cross the 700 km Great Sand Sea of the Egyptian Sahara solely on foot. He has also written for newspapers and magazines such as The Daily Telegraph, Maxim and Esquire, and has published several poetry collections, including one in 2003, with Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. Robert has published Real Men Eat Puffer Fish (2008), a humorous but comprehensive guide to frequently overlooked but not exclusively masculine pastimes, while his latest novel Dr. Ragab's Universal Language, was published to acclaim in July 2009. Robert now lives in Cairo, a move chronicled in his book Lost Oasis. He has lead several desert expeditions with 'The Explorer School'. Robert has given lectures on the topic of 'Lifeshifting', an approach which emphasises the need to centre one's life around meaning-driven motivation. Drawing on experiences working with indigenous peoples from around the world, he has spoken on 'work tribes' and polymathy. He has also spoken on leadership. Some of these talks have been to companies such as Procter and Gamble, Maersk Shipping, SAB Miller and Oracle computing.

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