Wild Thoughts from Wild Places.

In the introduction to this collection of essays, David Quammen offers an apologia for, as he calls it, the "slick" newsstand magazines. He then berates the "safely tenured academics and high-minded literati" for not seeing past the "advertisements for fancy sunglasses and Rollerblades and miracle-fiber underwear" and the "stories that might politely be called fatuous junk," to the meaty, imaginative nonfiction work slick magazines also publish.

Quammen is editor-at-large for Outside, a glossy monthly whose emphasis on exotic (and expensive) destinations and pricey gear makes it the Vanity Fair of outdoor magazines. He wrote a column titled "Natural Acts" for Outside for fifteen years, and most of the essays in this collection first appeared in the column or as features in Outside, Rolling Stone, or Powder.

Considering that this essay collection is one in a string of recent books to grow out of articles first published in Outside - the others include Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air - the magazine's literary stature hardly seems in peril. Quammen himself has a rare ability to write with broad appeal on topics ranging from white-water kayaking to trout fishing to Telemark skiing. In lesser hands, I suspect that most of these adventures would prove interesting only to hard-core devotees - or madmen. But Quammen, author of the prize-winning The Story of the Dodo, uses his exotic subjects as a framework for explaining everything from biodiversity to the physics of fluid dynamics to evolution.

The book's title doesn't refer solely to the unmarred, out-there wilderness. Quammen's "Wild" is an existential destination as well: places "unpolluted by absolute safety and certainty." Wildness is found not only on a secluded stretch of the Salmon River or Chile's Futaleufu River, but also in the foothills of Burbank, where coyotes roam, and in the urban "canyons" of New York City, which have fostered amazing evolutionary adaptations in the "postmodern pigeon."

The book is organized around four themes, "The River," "The City," "The Mountains," and, finally, "The Heart," that inner landscape that can be just as challenging to conquer as the most hairy stretch of river rapids. For that reason, I began reading section by section, essay by essay. But I don't recommend that approach. Wild Thoughts is too exhausting. Quammen's writing is energetic in the extreme, stuffed with information, but also with brash, provoking, indeed wild thoughts. Consider this passage from "Grabbing the Loop," in which the essayist laments plans to dam the Futaleufu River, a white-water Mecca, into a series of placid reservoirs: "Humanity badly needs things that are big and fearsome and homicidally wild. Counterintuitive as it may seem, we need to preserve those few remaining beasts, places, and forces of nature capable of murdering us with sublime indifference."

Quammen can write overlong and he does (as you can see) pontificate. In a sense, he just can't contain himself. He rarely resists the urge to throw in one more aside or digression. "The White Tigers of Cincinnati," for instance, warns about the dangers of breeding endangered species - in this case white tigers, veritable genetic mutants - for zoo exhibits. "Is the white tiger propagation a legitimate enterprise in zoo keeping? Or is it show business? Or is it both?" he asks. "The issue is complicated because those questions lead to others, some of which are easy to answer and some hard." What follows is an extended debate on the nature and value of zoos. But first, let's talk about tigers, particularly white tigers, genetic engineering...and on and on.

Wild Thoughts is most delightful when focused on quirky, slightly nutty personalities. Chris Spelius, subject of "Time and Tide on the Ocoee River," is the founder of the white-water rodeo, a type of kayaking competition for the very skilled - or the very foolish. Contestants perform stunts such as nosedives and rolls in what are called white-water "holes." As Quammen explains, a white-water hole is "a recirculating maw of foam...a vortex laid horizontal." Why does Spelius do this? He tells us simply, "Water is my medium."

Spelius has designed the perfect rodeo kayak and hopes to get it produced by a major manufacturer in time to use it in the World Whitewater Rodeo Championships, just three months away. However, this essay, ostensibly about building the perfect rodeo kayak, is really about aging and moving on in one's life. For Spelius, the big, hunky hot-dogging legend of the kayaking circuit, is about to turn forty-one! Younger, more agile kayakers are passing him by.

Many of Quammen's essays focus on the fleeting nature of things. In "Only Connect" he discusses the Wildlands Project, an effort to create so-called conservation corridors, reconnecting pockets of wilderness throughout the U.S. These wildlife corridors allowing flora and fauna to thrive as nature intended them to are the only hope we have for slowing "ecosystem decay," according to some. Only Connect. That is what Quammen, ultimately, is writing about.

Clare Collins is a freelance writer and tutor who lives in Pawcatuck, Connecticut.