Stephen Spotte

Anax Grayson, a neuroscientist and physicist, enlists in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and is assigned to an undermanned reconnaissance team. One member, Skeeter Hatfield, came of age in a southern West Virginia coal camp and suffered since childhood from a rare malady known as heautoscopic hallucinations during which he sees ghostly, extra-corporeal projections of his dead twin brother. In a journal Grayson records life as a field Marine, his observations of Hatfield's neurological condition, and speculates about matter and time. Hatfield survives a mortar attack and returns home with debilitating wounds. He marries a childhood acquaintance and with her help tries to overcome the terrifying hallucinations of his antagonistic Other. Spotte's narrative mosaic juxtaposes the dysfunctional, barely literate Hatfield family against Grayson's sympathetic erudition, weaving a mesmerizing disquisition on friendship, love, notions of time and space, neuroscience, quantum physics, consciousness, and the myths of agency and selfhood.

In a medieval French courtroom, animals are put on trial for "crimes" against mankind and must rely on preposterous legal diatribes by a court-appointed lawyer to defend them—great for fans of Umberto Eco, Edward Carey, and Amor Towles. Historical fiction has never been more uproarious as master storyteller Stephen Spotte unleashes this wild tale of opposing attorneys battling to defend or prosecute accused animals—including a rat and a pig—facing penalties of being hanged or burned alive at the stake: Think Willard meets The Name of the Rose. Based on actual court records, Spotte captures the wit and bluster of the era, where courtrooms were packed with cheering and heckling spectators in ever-more opaque, convoluted, and dilatory trials. By the end of this novel, Spotte uses his critically-acclaimed storytelling skills to explore still-relevant theories on legal precedent, the church vs. the state, mankind’s place in nature, and animal rights. Hilarious insights into pride, greed, and some of the most bizarre court trials in the history of the world. "Spotte is a master storyteller,” says Library Journal and in ANIMAL WRONGS, this acclaimed author is at his peak.

The Singing Bones recounts the life and times of eighteenth century polymath and explorer Georg Wilhelm Steller, the first European naturalist to visit Alaska.The first to propose that America was originally peopled by migrants from Siberia, Steller was aboard the packet boat St. Peter commanded by Vitus Bering on the Second Great Northern Expedition sponsored by the Russian Admiralty to determine if Asia and North America were connected by land or separated by a sea. When the St. Peter was wrecked on Bering Island in what was later named the Bering Sea, Steller cured the survivors, who were marooned and dying of scurvy, while making remarkable discoveries in natural history. He was first to describe the behavior and biology of the northern fur seal and Steller's sea lion, and his descriptions of the whale-sized Steller's sea cow and spectacled cormorant (both now extinct) are all we know about these exquisite creatures as living beings.The castaways eventually built a small vessel from the St. Peter's wreckage and sailed back to Kamchatka in autumn 1742, where Steller continued his explorations, in part while living with the indigenous Itelmen people.A blend of narrative adventure and biography, this historical first-person novel chronicles the professional visions and conflicted life of a deeply fascinating, flawed, and courageous man who devoted everything to advancing the frontiers of science and improving the lives of the native Siberians.

"Spotte has an eye for ironic detail, couched in vigorous, pragmatic prose. In him, Hemmingway meets Kafka."-Bruce R. Powers, co-author (with Marshall McLuhan) of The Global VillageThe 19 stories in marine scientist Stephen Spotte's latest collection penetrate the stormy, watery depth of the human psyche, blending elements of make-believe with sharp, systematic observations and insights into the twisted manifestations of life, love, and death. The tales skip across genres at breakneck speed, mixing humor and pathos with fantasy, sometimes in settings that juxtapose gritty reality with magical realism. Throughout, Spotte scrapes aside the thin patina of everyday existence, offering a glimpse into the strange abyssal world of his imagination.

Stephen Spotte's imaginative novel recounts the tales of a scroungy former alley cat named Jinx, whose memories aren't just his own but those of other cats who existed before him, one of which was Annipe, Cleopatra's pampered pet. Through Annipe's eyes the ancient Mediterranean world of Cleopatra and her legendary lovers, Caesar and Antony, spread before us in all its glory, pathos, and absurdity. Jinx reveals these stories telepathically one night to his stoned and inebriated owner just home after gall bladder surgery. Annipe's memories are bookended by Jinx's own that detail his early scavenging days in bleak urban alleys."Could not stop reading this unique and curious account of a major period in history. Viewing events that shook the ancient world through the eye of a feline makes one want to view today's news stories through the same lens. Never read a book with such a unique perspective. And it was fun."-Edward R. Ricciuti, author of Bears in the Backyard

When a Marine fireteam searches an isolated Vietnamese village believed to be a supply depot for the Viet Cong an IED explodes, leaving only one survivor of the five-man unit. But who is he: Bunny, Hillbilly, Poke, Injun, or "the LT"? Because he is horribly burned, disfigured, and unable to speak, the military doctors don't know, but the people back home in a coal mining camp in southern West Virginia think they know. Most unsettling of all the survivor himself isn't certain who he is.Spanning the landscape from Vietnam's war-torn jungles to hardscrabble Appalachia, In An Empty Room is a gripping examination of time, memory, consciousness, and selfhood and suggests unanticipated conclusions about the nature of human identity."Appearances to the contrary, In An Empty Room is not just another Vietnam War novel, even if it is another Vietnam War novel. What this book is really about is the nature of consciousness. As with most war stories, we're asked to consider how the dislocating trauma of war exorcises public demons at the expense of individual hearts and minds and bodies, and what it means for a world so afflicted to ask so much of its citizens. But that's only, and quite literally, half the story, rendered in first and second and third persons. The other half makes this that rare novel which comprises a journey into the thicket of a wounded mind, a mind searching for an identity to serve as evidence of this empty room we call the self."-Joe Amato, author of Samuel Taylor's Last Night

Stephen Spotte, Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Florida, USA Tarpons arose from an ancient lineage, and just two species exist today, confined to the tropics and subtropics: Megalops atlanticus in the western and eastern Atlantic and Megalops cyprinoides distributed widely across the Indo-West Pacific. The Atlantic tarpon is considered king of the saltwater sport fishes and supports a multi-billion dollar recreational fishery in the U.S. alone. The Pacific tarpon, which is much smaller, is less valued by anglers. Both have limited commercial value but offer considerable potential for future aquaculture because of their hardiness, rapid growth, and ease of adaptation to captivity. This book is the latest and most thorough text on the biology, ecology, and fisheries (sport and commercial) of tarpons. The chapters comprise clear, intricate discourses on such subjects as early development and metamorphosis, population genetics, anatomical and physiological features and adaptations, migrations, reproductive biology, and culminate with a concise overview of the world's tarpon fisheries. A comprehensive appendix includes Spotte's original translations of important papers published previously by others in Spanish and Portuguese and unavailable until now to English readers. Tarpons: Biology, Ecology, Fisheries will be of considerable interest and use to fishery and research biologists, marine conservationists, aquaculturists, and informed anglers

In My Watery Self: An Aquatic Memoir, author/scientist Stephen Spotte traces a fascinating trail through a life that began in West Virgina coal camps, drifted through reckless bohemian times of countercultural indulgence in Beach Haven, New Jersey, and led to a career as a highly-respected marine biologist. Together, these stories form a view not just of one man's life, but that of a generation that often refused to take a direct path to the workplace, insisting instead on a winding unveiling of true self-realization, to achieve previously-unimagined outcomes. For Spotte, the key was water: His years of beach living led to a self-initiated study of literature and the sea. He eventually returned to college and received his training as a marine biologist, and discovered, through his singular voice, a wet and occasionally very weird perspective on the world. His writing is engrossing throughout, the stories he shares--such as his stint as curator of the New York Aquarium at Coney Island at the tail end of the hippie era--are compelling and thoroughly enjoyable as he elevates the people and situations he encounters to mythical levels, blending empirical observation with literary prose.

Feral and stray domestic cats occupy many different habitats. They can resist dehydration for months by relying exclusively on the tissue water of their prey allowing them to colonize remote deserts and other inhospitable places. They thrive and reproduce in humid equatorial rainforests and windswept subantarctic islands. In many areas of the world feral cats have driven some species of birds and mammals to extinction and others to the edge, becoming a huge conservation concern. With the control of feral and stray cats now a top conservation priority, biologists are intensifying efforts to understand cat behaviour, reproductive biology, use of space, intraspecies interaction, dietary requirements, prey preferences, and vulnerability to different management strategies. This book provides the most comprehensive review yet published on the behavior, ecology and management of free-ranging domestic cats, whether they be owned, stray, or feral. It reviews management methods and their progress, and questions several widely accepted views of free-ranging cats, notably that they live within dominance hierarchies and are highly social. Insightful and objective, this book includes: a functional approach, emphasizing sensory biology, reproductive physiology, nutrition, and spacepartitioning;clear treatment of how free-ranging cats should be managed;extensive critical interpretation of the world's existing literature;results of studies of cats in laboratories under controlled conditions, with data that can also beapplied to pet cats. Free-ranging Cats: Behavior, Ecology, Management is valuable to ecologists, conservation scientists, animal behaviorists, wildlife nutritionists, wildlife biologists, research and wildlife veterinarians, clinical veterinarians, mammalogists, and park and game reserve planners and administrators.

Wolves are charismatic emblems of wilderness. Dogs, which descended from wolves, are models of urbanity. Do free-ranging dogs revert to pack living or are their societies only reminiscent of a wolfish heritage? Focusing on behavioral ecology, this is the first book to assess societies of both gray wolves and domestic dogs living as urban strays and in the feral state. It provides a comprehensive review of wolf genetics, particularly of New World wolves and their mixture of wolf, coyote and dog genomes. Spotte draws on the latest scientific findings across the specialized fields of genetics, sensory biology, reproductive physiology, space use, foraging ecology and socialization. This interdisciplinary approach provides a solid foundation for a startling and original comparison of the social lives of wolves and free-ranging dogs. Supplementary material, including a full glossary of terms, is available online at www.cambridge.org/9781107015197.

When the young narrator of Brother’s Ghost happens upon a warehouse filled with corpses of the ‘disappeared ones’, victims of his country’s brutal military regime, he is forced to flee his home and family and strike out for the interior. There he reunites with his long-estranged mother, a member of an indigenous tribe of Indians living deep in the tropical rainforest.

The science and common sense behind creating an inexpensive, flourishing marine aquarium Marine Aquarium Keeping is the first complete, step-by-step handbook to bring scientific perspective and insight to the practical basics of assembling and successfully maintaining a conventional marine aquarium. While minimizing gadgetry and underscoring a simple, commonsense regimen of looking, seeing, and understanding, author and marine biologist Stephen Spotte offers logical, chapter-by-chapter guidance to every facet of the hobby—from choosing equipment and setting up an aquarium, to selecting healthy animals and maintaining a flourishing underwater environment. Inside, readers will discover:*How to make a new aquarium suitable for sustaining life*How to select healthy animals from species demonstrating good captive survival*The step-by-step basics of routine maintenance*How to easily meet the nutritional requirements of marine animals*The key to disease prevention*The use of seawater and artificial seawaters*The living subgravel filter*Aquarium decorations as shelter spaces and as aesthetic features*The marine aquarium as a living communityAn extensive health and disease section offers detailed, easy-to-follow treatment regimens, several unique to this volume, for a variety of common diseases. Current controversies and popular myths surrounding aquarium keeping, such as the benefits of supplemental light and the superiority of plastic filtrants, are also examined. A wealth of black-and-white and color photographs that strikingly depict marine animals in their natural habitat bring key facets of the text to life. Indispensable to the amateur aquarist who appreciates both the beauty and science of this fascinating pastime, this newest edition of the popular classic is the complete guide to successful, inexpensive marine aquarium keeping.