The Last Great Auk: A Novel

Really, this is quite an unforgettable book. I remember first reading it as a child. I never came across the book again (it was from a library) but occasionally thought about it and always hoped to find it. Now The Last Great Auk is in print again, and some 25 years after I first read it, I find it still captures and holds my imagination like few other tales.The Last Great Auk tells the story of one particular member of a large group of the last remaining Great Auks - flightless birds that were the North Atlantic's equivalent of penguins. Eckert's prose is simple and restrained - understandably it can appear in a childrens' library - but the themes he explores and the emotions he works with are deep.We follow the auk through his growth and along his great migrations, as he and the species' remaining thousands face the yearly challenge of swimming from Iceland to winter on America's eastern coast, and returning months later. Along the way, our auk must face and overcome challenges that are no less fearful for being so familiar. We empathize as he struggles through youth, loses his parents, faces indifferent Nature with courage, and wills himself to survive and win.Eckert's writing is descriptive and convincing, but it is the familiarity of the bird's predicament, and his courage that we hope to share, that makes us relate to him so immediately. The loss of a species may seem abstract, but the loss of a friend is all too real. The Last Great Auk pays homage to the lost multitudes by following the tragedy of their single last survivor.Along the way we are reminded - if we care to think about it, because this tale never strays from simply describing the auk's life - that life and death are not experiences unique to us, and the fact of our being is little different to those other expressions of life around us.A universal story, beautifully told.

A gripping, heartbreaking tale about a remarkable creature now gone forever at the hands of man. The Great Auk was the northern hemisphere's equivalent of the penquin, a large flightless sea bird that migrated in large flocks by swimming the north Atlantic from as far south as Cape Hatteras to bleak islands off the coasts of Greenland and Iceland to breed. Inoffensive, monogamous, oafish on land but miraculously adept underwater, this bird was hounded into extinction by a greedy, selfish, murderous humanity until the last pair were finally clubbed to death defending their egg on an uninhabited island off Iceland. Details about ships visiting the islands where the birds bred and reared their young are evocative of nothing so much as Einsatzgruppen units descending on eastern European villages during World War II, leaving behind blood-drenched chaos in their wake.This book is hard to finish reading knowing, as one does, how it will end. But it is a beautifully written, haunting tribute to an extraordinary animal and a revealing tale about the savagery of northern Europeans that will not be soon forgotten.

I knew going into this book the end result would be heartbreaking with that being said I had high hopes this would turn out to be a great read. I will say that this book did not disappoint. I loved how you followed the life of a Great Auk from the moment of birth through the seasonal migrations and the run ins with not only nature but humans as well. I found myself cringing about the cruelty of humans but it thus is the sad truth. These once majestic birds were hunted to extinction to satisfy the human appetite. This story is not the first and certainly was not the last with species going extinct at a frightening pace. I also have The Silent Sky which is about the Passenger Pigeons also by the same author which I am going to explore next. Truly a great read.

One can never go wrong with the Jesse Stuart Foundation. Their titles are very appealing to folks with an interest in line with the foundations charter. Very satisfying buying experience. Very worthy seller. The story is engaging natural history and poignant. Captivating read.

Another great Eckert book telling the story of the extinction of the Auk.

I really love this book! Rich in details and a great story. I would definitely recommend this book to my friends.

Made it there quick and was even signed by the author.

Don't think I'm spoiling anything in saying things don't turn out well for the Great Auk.The first half of this book is actually quite underwhelming: here is the life of an animal…that’s it. The Auks themselves aren’t anthropomorphized, except for a tiny bit at a few moments, and we are very much an observer to these birds lives as if watching a nature documentary. Sure there are some dangers, but nothing more than what other animals face (with the exception of a foreshadowing event at the beginning of the book). The longer you read the more it seems you are lulled into a false sense of security, till you almost forget what is inevitably going to happen.Then, as suddenly as Bambi’s mother being shot, we are struck with a great harrowing disaster and this becomes a different book in tone, it turns from a ‘nature-documentary’-like story into a tragedy.The contrast between the two halves is very effective. I found myself mentally-screaming in frustration at the Auk’s misfortune (in a good way).By the end, I was very impressed with the impact this book left on me. If you can find a copy (and they seem as rare as the Auks themselves these days) I would recommend this book for any that have a day to spare.

If you watched Walking with Dinosaurs with the voice over of Sir David Attenborough , he imagines the life of an individual dinosaur.This is how Allan Eckert has told the imagined life of the last Great Auk. A good read .