Turtle Diary

Russell Hoban's novel consists of alternating first-person chapters about two loners, a middle-aged male bookshop clerk and a middle-aged female writer, who are connected by their desire to set zoo turtles free into the sea. Sensitive, sharp, and not without humor, it is both a fine study of character and of life's meanings. The turtles simply are, which is a lesson the humans come in time to learn.