For roughly 2.1 billion people around the world, the printed tome that combines the Hebrew and Greek Testaments to tell the story of a Semitic-speaking people inhabiting the Middle East from the beginning of its (and many believe, all of our collective) history through the life, death, and resurrection of its Messiah is understood as the significant guide by which one’s life is to be governed. While interpretations of its inerrancy, how it is to be understood, and by what means its teachings are to be enacted differ among the many Christian denominations, one things is abundantly clear – as a book, it has had and continues to have more influence on human life than any other written work known to mankind. Naturally, this includes all the fields of study categorized under the general term natural history. Read the rest of this entry »

The search for the solution to what Sir John Herschel famously called the “mystery of mysteries” – how new species come to exist – has brought a myriad of remarkable creatures to the attention of science. From Deinonychus to Darwin’s Galapagos finches, every discovery has added another clue to the assembled body of knowledge that may someday yield the solution. Yet after reading Sean B. Carroll’s Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species, the reader is left with another tantalizing question to ponder in addition to Herschel’s mystery; that question being which are really the more remarkable – the creatures that have been discovered in the one-hundred-fifty year old quest for the mystery’s answer or the “creatures” (meant rhetorically and with the greatest possible respect, of course) who made the discoveries. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s face it – natural history enthusiasts can sometimes be a tough lot for whom to buy gifts; especially if you don’t personally share, or even know much about, their particular interests. Alternatively, even if you do share a common interest with the gift-worthy person or people in your life, you might be at a bit of a loss as to just which of the superb collection of recently released titles from which to choose. For that reason, we present The Well-read Naturalist list of holiday gift book picks to help with your gift-giving needs. Some have already been previously reviewed on this site while others are still awaiting a full and complete published review; however even those titles appearing in this list that have not yet received a formal review here have been nevertheless been critically examined and deemed worthy of detailed published comment in the very near future. Read the rest of this entry »

Recounting the life of a notoriously private person is, not unexpectedly, a very difficult task. In the case of Roger Tory Peterson, the activity is made all the more difficult by the fact that one facet of his life, his creation and refinement of the modern field guide, so dominates his popular legacy. But while in the minds of millions of nature enthusiasts the name “Peterson” is nearly eponymous with the very idea of a field guide itself, to limit one’s attention to this admittedly monolithic achievement of such a talented and complex man is to misjudge the importance of his true legacy to humanity’s relationship with nature. Fortunately, Douglas Carlson’s biography is sufficiently expansive in scope to encompass the many facets of Peterson without being unwieldy in length or needlessly excessive in detail. Read the rest of this entry »