Traveling the globe, the author of Jaguars Ripped My Flesh here heads to sites as far-flung as the Congolese jungle, Saharan salt mines, and the largest toxic-waste dump in the Western hemisphere. As witty as he is insightful, Tim Cahill describes stalking the legendary Caspian tiger in the mountains bordering Iraq, slogging through a pitch-black Australian eucalyptus forest to find the nocturnal platypus, diving with great white sharks in South Africa, and staving off enlightenment at a yoga retreat in Jamaica.