Zoo Story, Thomas French
Zoo Story, Thomas French
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Zoo Story
Life in the Garden of Captives

Author: Thomas French

Narrator: John Allen Nelson

Unabridged: 8 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/03/2010

Categories: Nonfiction, Nature, Animals


Synopsis

Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants, both animal and human. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco.

Zoo Story crackles with issues of global urgency: the shadow of extinction, humanity's role in the destruction or survival of other species. More than anything else, though, it's a dramatic and moving true story of seduction and betrayal, exile and loss, and the limits of freedom on an overcrowded planet—all framed inside one zoo reinventing itself for the twenty-first century.

Thomas French, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, chronicles the action with vivid power: Wild elephants soaring above the Atlantic on their way to captivity. Predators circling each other in a lethal mating dance. Primates plotting the overthrow of their king. The sweeping narrative takes the listener from the African savannah to the forests of Panama and deep into the inner workings of a place some describe as a sanctuary and others condemn as a prison. All of it comes to life in the book's four-legged characters.

Zoo Story shows us how these remarkable individuals live, how some die, and what their experiences reveal about the human desire to both exalt and control nature.

About Thomas French

Thomas French was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and many other honors for his writing during three decades as a reporter at the St. Petersburg Times. He is the author of Unanswered Cries and South of Heaven, and he currently teaches journalism at Indiana University. Thomas also is a writing fellow at the Poynter Institute.


Reviews

I’ve always felt conflicted about zoos. On the one hand, I enjoy seeing the animals up close and personal. On the other hand, I always feel guilty. No matter how big or “friendly” their habitat, I still feel a bit melancholy when I see magnificent wild animals living their lives in such an unnatural......more

I found stacks and stacks of this book in a neglected corner during a Borders going-out-of-business sale. It was odd for me, because I hadn't heard of it at all. So I picked it up and took it home. (How could I not? It had elephants on the cover and promised to be a behind-the-scenes look at a zoo.)......more

Goodreads review by Laura

I caught myself constantly wanting to shout "Yes! You sooo get it!" throughout this book. It manages to capture all of the ethical quandaries and essentially "doublethink" games keepers face every day when taking care of exotic animals in a zoo. It's a highly conflicted field and French does a wonde......more

Goodreads review by Ellen

There are so many superlatives I can use to review this book. It's riveting, fascinating, heartbreaking, funny and a real page turner. It's the story of the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa Florida. It tells the story of the rise, fall and rise again of America's Number One Family Zoo and all the characters......more