The famous book is the story, alternately gripping and pathetic, bitter and humorous, of a super hero anxious to lose himself as an individual and to become part of a functionning military unit. All the barracks-room bawdy talk, the staggeringly hard training, and the exhausting boredom of military life are in this book by the author of "The seven pillars of Wisdom".

A single mother and her son drive hours to track down an African gray parrot that can mimic her deceased mother's voice. A population-control activist faces the conflict between her loyalty to the environment and her maternal desire in "Yesterday's Whales".