702 pages, indexed, glossary, bibliography. The book has been covered in contact, there is a neat ownership signature in the frontr end paper, else the book appears unread. Five stars from this reader (me). "Why have island ecosystems always suffered such high rates of extinction? In our age, with all the world's landscapes, from Tasmania to the Amazon to Yellowstone, now being carved into island-like fragments by human activity, the implications of this question are more urgent than ever. Over the past eight years, David Quammen has followed the threads of island biogeography on a globe-encircling journey of discovery."