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An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin), he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of "natural productions"-he caught, skinned, and pickled 125,660 specimens, including 212 new species of birds and 900 new species of beetles. Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling, combining incisive biography and personal travelogue. He examines themes about which Wallace cared deeply-women's power, why boys leave home, the need to collect, our relationship with other species, humanity's need to control nature and how this leads to nature destruction, arrogance, the role of ego and greed, white-brown and brown-brown colonialism, serendipity, passion, mysticism-and interprets them through his own filter with layers of humor, history, social commentary, and sometimes outrageous personal tales.

A Great Man and His Unheralded AssistantFor some 50 years, Paul Sochaczewski has been on the trail of famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and his little-known assistant Ali.The result of this quest is an imaginative "enhanced biography" of an illiterate 19th-century teenager from Borneo who helped Wallace become one of history's most successful explorers of the natural world. This deliciously speculative book, filled with humor and touching scenes of imagined conversations, takes a hard look at "slippery truth," and, perhaps most important, asks the question: "Is there someone in your life who has quietly helped you, perhaps without adequate recognition, on your journey?"In this innovative approach to biography, you'll discover:New clues that expand our knowledge of Ali's background and careerWhy writing the history of a 19th-century teenage boy from Borneo is so challengingDetails about how Ali collected some 5,000 of Wallace's 8,050 bird specimensImagined conversations that explore emotions and perceptions of Wallace and AliHow each of us has an "Ali" who has helped us along the wayWho's your Ali? Perhaps this book might encourage to reach out to someone forgotten but who eased your path along your journey?