Between Man and Beast

I love nonfiction adventure books that immerse you in the details of an adventure while providing enough background information to understand the historical, cultural, and scientific perspectives of an era. In the mid-19th century, Paul du Chaillu spent years in Western Africa tracking down the njena, the mythical beast. This book makes for interesting reading as the author weaves the true-life adventure story of the discovery of the gorilla with Darwin’s evolutionary debate, and the challenges a Victorian-era scientist faced to prove his credibility. 

This book has been given by me to many of my wildlife loving friends, with a hissing insistence they must read it. It tells the story of how the gorilla entered the western conscience just as evolutionary debate was raging. The characters include many that loom through history, yet the central figure has been banished from it. The why of that is the greatest, most tragic part of this excellent work of narrative non-fiction.