Featured Book Review
Pocket-sized Mental Health Improvement Kits
Let’s be honest – even the most social media skeptical amongst us is vulnerable, should we find ourselves waiting in a particularly long queue, stuck in non-moving traffic, waiting for a coffee or a meal, etc. – to pulling out one of the ubiquitous little electronic time thieves that we carry about on our person each day, tapping open Insta-Book-Red-Tok, and allowing our attention to be diverted while our cognitive abilities and mental health are slowly degraded. It’s difficult not to fall into this trap. Indeed, it’s designed to be that way as there are billions of dollars to be made by causing every man, woman, and child on the planet capable of seeing a screen to develop an addiction to the use of social media through the Pavlovian conditioning of those using it by leveraging with each scroll the user’s own hypothalamus to release dopamine, explained by this article from Mass General Brigham McLean Hospital as “a ‘feel-good chemical’ linked to pleasurable activities such as sex, food, and social interaction.” As the article continues “the platforms are designed to be addictive and are associated with anxiety, depression, and even physical ailments.” More than perhaps any other modern business, social media companies have proven very well that if you aren’t paying a company for a service you think you are receiving, you’re not the customer; you’re the product
Newly Noted Books
Bugwatching
In his recently published “Bugwatching; the Art, Joy, and Importance of Observing Insects,” Eric R. Eaton presents his readers with a method for developing a practice of observing arthropods that is not dissimilar to that of watching birds.
Unnatural Habitat
For an upcoming business trip to Los Angeles, I’m taking full advantage of a very interesting book published in 2024 by Heyday, Craig Stanford’s “Unnatural Habitat; the Native and Exotic Wildlife of Los Angeles,” to prepare myself for opportunities to observe and casually study the native and non native plants and animals I may see while there.
The Princeton Field Guide to Sauropod and Prosauropod Dinosaurs
Had a book existed such as “The Princeton Field Guide to Sauropod and Prosauropod Dinosaurs,” it very likely would have been my most prized possession, and would have increased my already elevated level of precociousness by at least an order of magnitude.
The Inheritors
William Golding’s 1955 novel “The Inheritors” has been added to the list of works available in the famous Penguin Classics series. For those unfamiliar with this lesser known work of Mr. Golding, this new edition is presents a fine opportunity to read a truly engaging story that takes a band of Neanderthals as its main characters.
Biographies
A Cross Cultural Life
In 1959, C. P. Snow, the noted British chemist and novelist, delivered the Rede Lecture at Cambridge University that has come to be far more discussed and debated than perhaps any other of such in the past century. In his The Two Cultures, as it was later published, Baron Snow described the existence of two […]
Uncomfortable Questions
At the Society for the Protection of Birds’ sixth annual general meeting in 1896, Miss Julia Andrews, a fifty-eight year old spinster and local secretary for the Society’s branch in Teddington, rose to ask a very uncomfortable question to all the good and the great – as well as the more middling sort such as […]
Life Science Books
Outsider Animals
Cockroaches, cowbirds, gulls, raccoons; all widely derided animals, and yet all also remarkable in their lives and ecological roles if only ill-informed popular prejudices are put aside to learn more about them. Prof. Marlene Zuk provides a superb opportunity to do exactly this in her new book “Outsider Animals.”
Moths of Western North America
To write that I’m pleased that Seabrooke Leckie’s “Moths of Western North America” has finally been brought to publication by Princeton University Press is like writing that Henry VIII had minor marital commitment challenges; I’m positively giddy with excitement about it.
Physical Science Books
Reaching the Stars
When I think about all the people I know presently involved in science – either actively working in one of the many disciplines from biology to astronomy, studying to one day do so, or working in an occupation supporting the dissemination of discoveries therein or for the greater widespread understanding thereof – the majority who […]
For All Who Look Up
The scene: a very nicely appointed high-rise hotel room in 1953. Two figures – “the Actress” (who looks remarkably like Marylin Monroe, played by Theresa Russell) and “the Professor” (looking every bit the spitting image of Albert Einstein, played by Michael Emil) – are gazing out a large window into the night. Professor: I prefer […]
Interdisciplinary Natural Science Books
Discovering What’s Missing
As of 2019, the largest carnivore (well, mostly, and at least, officially) in the UK is the Badger, an adult boar (male) of which is, on average, just over ten kilograms in weight and just under a meter in length. The largest herbivore in the same region is the Red Deer, the stag of which […]
Going Beneath the Surface
We’ve all heard the old saying; whenever someone is embarrassed or fearful to the point where all hope seems lost, “I just want to crawl into a hole and die.” However when you think about it, this saying makes little sense. After all, the point is to get away from the problem, hence crawling into […]
History (of Natural History, of Science, of Medicine) Books
Black Gold
In his new book “Black Gold; The Rise, Reign, and Fall of American Coal,” Prof. Bob Wyss presents a detailed and multi-faceted narrative history of the industry that includes the effects it has had upon American society, organized labor, governmental policy, and U.S. natural resource management.
Making Entomologists
The rise of journals in the fields of natural history in general and entomology in particular greatly assisted in the formation of communities of interest in the study of such subjects. Dr. Matthew Wale explains in his “Making Entomologists.”
Natural History Books
Bugwatching
In his recently published “Bugwatching; the Art, Joy, and Importance of Observing Insects,” Eric R. Eaton presents his readers with a method for developing a practice of observing arthropods that is not dissimilar to that of watching birds.
Unnatural Habitat
For an upcoming business trip to Los Angeles, I’m taking full advantage of a very interesting book published in 2024 by Heyday, Craig Stanford’s “Unnatural Habitat; the Native and Exotic Wildlife of Los Angeles,” to prepare myself for opportunities to observe and casually study the native and non native plants and animals I may see while there.
Nature Writing
Winter
By most reckonings, winter begins on 21 December – the winter solstice – however in The Well-read Naturalist library, winter arrived on 26 October this year. I speak, of course, not about the season itself, rather about the fourth and completing volume of the quartet of seasonal anthologies edited by Melissa Harrison and published by Elliott & Thompson.
The Charles Bowden Reader
As Bowden told Brooke Gladstone during an interview on WNYC’s On the Media regarding his recent book Dreamland, “My dream is to invite a reader into a room and pour a nice cup of tea and then nail the damn door shut.” It is a dream that he has unquestionably realized.
Books for Children
Unless
At the beginning of the 1970s, Theodore Seuss Geisel, finding himself increasingly troubled by the rapid and careless commercial development of the land around the then still idyllic La Jolla, California where he and his wife made their home, decided to do something about it. After giving the matter some thought, he determined that the […]
Discovering the Truth About Nature
Let’s face it: children ask an astonishing number of questions, and children exposed to even a tiny bit of nature ask an exponentially larger number. Parents – or for that matter, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers and anyone else with an interest in a child’s overall education and well-being – naturally want to be able to […]