An absolutely gut-wrenching and horrific book for any animal lover. It's a book about a famous taxidermist, so you go into it knowing animals will die, but the author seemed intent on making things as graphic as possible and depicting all the characters as being bloody minded eugenicists.
He mentions , sort of in passing, that Akeley believed what he was doing was necessary to preserve these animals that were inevitably going to disappear and does give him credit in the end for helping set up the first gorilla preserve.
The hunting isn't even the worst of it , though, the "kidnapped" monkey and the poor desperate and lonely woman who holds it captive while seemingly understanding it is wrong and suffering the horrible guilt in consequence, was the worst, almost unbearable. One senses the author's sympathies were with Mrs. Akeley and the monkey. An interesting if unsettling read ( )

3.5 stars

Carl Akeley (1864-1926) was a famous taxidermist, most notable for setting up dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History. He spent much time in Africa with this two successive wives, on hunting safaris, looking for the perfect specimens for scientific posterity.

I had a bit of a hard time with this. It’s an interesting story and he had an interesting life (he also invented a few things, one of them highlighted in the book being a video camera to take nature videos), but I had a really hard time with the hunting – in my mind, it was just glorified trophy hunting. So wasteful – he would kill animals, but not even use them because they were not exactly what he was looking for for his imagined displays for the museum. He later did help start a sanctuary for gorillas, but only after he’d killed the ones he wanted, and he continued to kill other animals after. It did read like fiction, but the author has notes at the end to explain where he got much of his information and where he “expanded” and how he came to decide on telling it that way. ( )

Taxidermy, especially at the museum level fascinates me as a merger of science and art. Carl Akeley is considered to be the father of modern taxidermy, and this book follows his life from boyhood to dying on his last trip to Africa. Jay Kirk takes some liberties depicting scenes using words people said from various memoirs or letters, but I appreciated it as it kept an interesting narrative for a fascinating man. Also included: Teddy Roosevelt, attitudes about conservation and evolution from the turn of the century, and shooting things in the name of science.

Also, FINALLY finished it. Started it last summer but had to return it to the library, school library didn't have a copy, and finally found one here in Boise during my midsummer class. Huzzah for taking one off my currently reading shelf~ ( )

The story of Carl Akeley as he improves the world of taxidermy and goes to Africa to preserve the big game animals that are being hunted out of existence. He also developed a camera to take live action film of the animals as they move. His was an interesting world. The details are fascinating as Mr. Kirk tells Carl's story. I even read the notes. His documentation of his sources is good. I want to read some of them, if they are still available. I loved Micki, stubborn as she could be, but that is what gave her the strength and courage to do what she did for Carl. I did not like his second wife as well. Carl had a lot of stamina and perseverance as he went for the animals he wanted in his dioramas surviving a leopard and elephant attack. He should die much earlier than he did. He was involved with famous people from that era--Theodore Roosevelt and George Eastman of Kodak. Interesting story. Reads like a novel. ( )

At the turn of the 20th century, Carl Akeley revolutionized the art of taxidermy. Prior to his work, preserving an animal involved stuffing the skin with paper and sawdust, resulting in a comically ill-defined monstrosity that only vaguely resembled the original animal. Akeley was unsatisfied, and spent many years perfecting his craft, trying different methods (such as using wire mesh and clay sculptures under the hide) to truly bring the animals to life.

I suppose whenever discussing the book the format must be addressed. The book is infamous for treading the line between fiction and nonfiction. Jay Kirk meticulously researched Carl Akeley's life, that is indisputable. However, when he wrote his book, even though it is labeled as nonfiction, he wrote it in narrative form, so that it reads like a fictional story. The criticism comes with the "facts" that the author invented. In order to stitch together full scenes, he had to fudge the details a bit. He admits this in his notes, where he points out where he had to create a line or two of conversation to make it complete. This is, naturally, unacceptable to purists.

I'm on the fence with this one. On one hand, yes, some of the minor details are potentially inaccurate. On the other hand, is that any less true for traditional nonfiction? If only I knew how many times I've read science nonfiction in which the facts are mixed with theory or the authors own hypotheses, or history books in which the author says something "probably" happened or that "most people believe" one thing or another.

Don't get me wrong, I don't really like the narrative nonfiction format and I would have preferred just the facts, please. I do think the format hurts the book, but I don't think it breaks it entirely. At worse, you can consider this one of the most accurate and well-researched pieces of historical fiction you will probably ever read. With that kind of outlook, Kingdom Under Glass is brilliant. As a work of nonfiction, however, I'm considering it nothing better than average. ( )