I was rather amazed at the wide swath of society that Heacox manages to tap in building his characters. None of them are cardboard cutouts. All are soI was rather amazed at the wide swath of society that Heacox manages to tap in building his characters. None of them are cardboard cutouts. All are so human and so fuzzy around the edges that they really come alive in the pages. You feel you know the characters. As a wilderness lover, I got into the plot, and I related both to the defenders and the despoilers. This book is definitely worth one's time. ...more
Probably my favorite book of my early childhood when i was around five years old around 1960. Before I could read my father taught me to sign my name sProbably my favorite book of my early childhood when i was around five years old around 1960. Before I could read my father taught me to sign my name so I could get a library card. It's likely that it was the first book i checked out of the library. I remember my father reading this book to me. (Who knew then that I'd go on to write books myself? The experience of libraries as a child made books seem like friends to me, or at least like special things.) It's interesting that this book is still making the rounds. I guess a good story is eternal. ...more
Hauntingly beautiful language. Brief, but exactly as long as it needs to be. The language holds the reader in the cognitive dissonance of Lopez's brinHauntingly beautiful language. Brief, but exactly as long as it needs to be. The language holds the reader in the cognitive dissonance of Lopez's bringing so much beauty of thought and word into something so unbeautiful, and that is why the book haunts....more
A contemporary look at Indigenous views through the eyes of someone who identifies deeply as Indigenous (from the continent we now call Australia) yetA contemporary look at Indigenous views through the eyes of someone who identifies deeply as Indigenous (from the continent we now call Australia) yet who also operates in the Western, industrialized context.
He has deep insights and a very engaging, open writing style. I've read a lot about Indigenous world views recently and this book stands out as relevant, deliciously irreverent, profound, and refreshing....more
Chronicling the author's quest for a PhD during his study of a spectacular owl, entailing difficult conditions, difficult people, impressive other peoChronicling the author's quest for a PhD during his study of a spectacular owl, entailing difficult conditions, difficult people, impressive other people, and magnificent nature, the book is admirably well written, inviting, and transporting.
Several people have recommended the book to me, which says more about the book than anything I might say....more
If you compare Rockwell Kent's art to reality, you recognize immediately that he is a stylist, not a realist. His visual style is selective, simplifieIf you compare Rockwell Kent's art to reality, you recognize immediately that he is a stylist, not a realist. His visual style is selective, simplified, heroic. That's his writing, too. Most of the reviews here describe the book as "his account of a voyage..." Yes, it sort-of is, but the writing is highly stylized and selective. Each sentence crafted for stylistic effect rather than information. To the extent that he paints with words, he paints the scene he wants it to be, he wants you to get. He is more an impressionist than a documentarian. That makes the book very unusual. If you like the style (I did), you'll like the book. It's from another era, and that alone earns a star....more
One of my newly favorite authors and thinkers returns again to consider what consciousness is and what creates the ability of an entity to experience One of my newly favorite authors and thinkers returns again to consider what consciousness is and what creates the ability of an entity to experience sensations. We know that much of our brain and body does things "in the dark," directing and carrying out high and complex functions without our being aware of them and with no decision-making ability. We also know that part of our brain and the brains of many other species functions as what we can call a "mind," capable of creating experienced sensations through input from sense organs, capable of imagining, of remembering, of deciding. Here in Metazoa we are talking about how this happens. So there is much illuminating science. But no one is quite sure how it happens, and the competing and conflicting ideas--along with the author's encounters with undersea animals and the abundant evidence of their conscious perception and sentience--makes this book very, very interesting.
Some sections verged a bit on the academic (I say this as an academician, as is the author). But so what. Godfrey-Smith takes us for a ride on the frontier of knowledge and informed speculation. Very worth the time and the reading. ...more
Gretel Ehrlich fell in love with the people, landscape, and lifeways of Greenland. I had an opportunity to compare notes with her in person many yearsGretel Ehrlich fell in love with the people, landscape, and lifeways of Greenland. I had an opportunity to compare notes with her in person many years after she made a series of trips to the high Greenlandic Arctic, which was many years after I spent several weeks on the Arctic Circle there doing research on falcons, and also had visited the Canadian high Arctic where the natives had foresaken dog-teams in favor of snowmobiles. So, I could relate to the landscapes and their allure, and to, for instance, the sight of a basking seal getting shot and the taste of seal stew.
Ehrlich offers the people there as living traditional lives, but she knows that when she was visiting in the 1990s the tilt to modernity was overtaking the traditions. Most interesting to me are her descriptions of traditional spiritual beliefs, which strike me as a demon-haunted existence in a place where life and death are always so close and starvation always so near-at-hand that living and dying are practically overlapping propositions.
Equally compelling, and what made this book work well for me are the super-human explorations of ethnographic teams which, in one case, traveled by dog-team from Greenland to Alaska, an expedition taking several years in a region where night lasts for about four months. Between those stories we travel with the author, among the people she meets.
Perhaps most admirable, and yet the one thing about this book that did not sit comfortably with me, was the description of hunters with high-power rifles and scopes as "traditional," and the (almost) completely non-judgmental view of killing polar bears whenever someone needs a new pair of winter pants. In her defense, this writing was done just before the existential threats to the Arctic's ice systems, polar bears, and all its wildlife were understood and appreciated as well as they are now.
Overall a very worthwhile and read--one of those books where you keep stopping your spouse and calling your friends to read passages aloud. ...more
A very original book by a very original thinker, this book is about the nature of conscious experience and its evolution in the living world.
What makA very original book by a very original thinker, this book is about the nature of conscious experience and its evolution in the living world.
What makes this book (and its author) very worth reading is that Godfrey-Smith is a rare philosopher who actually knows what he is talking about. Many philosophers work from a hypothesis but gather and apply no data. That is why science grew out of philosophy, because systematically collecting objective evidence is a more powerful way of probing the world than just thinking about it. (Evidence can be deemed objective when other observers can repeat the results. And in science, evidence that falsifies a hypothesis must be accepted as stronger than the hypothesis itself.)
Peter Godfrey-Smith works more like a biologist, observing first hand, reading very widely, synthesizing what is known, thinking deep from the frontiers of knowledge, and then offering his analysis. Other minds is a very eye-opening, stimulating book. And who doesn't love the main characters that he returns to again and again: those eight-armed, eight-brained beings whose close relatives are clams but whose independently evolved intellects parallel those of great apes. Octopuses, of course.
The earliest parts of The Overstory struck me as so powerfully conceived and brilliantly written that during one passage the hair on my arms stood up.The earliest parts of The Overstory struck me as so powerfully conceived and brilliantly written that during one passage the hair on my arms stood up.
This is an ambitious novel driven by a great appreciation of those who love the natural world enough to defend it with their lives, and an incisive grasp of those who hate it enough to destroy everything they can take away from it for a few short years of personal greed. Unfortunately for all of us—and what makes this novel powerful—these characters all closely track real people and real events. There are heroes and villains, defenders and despoilers. Some of the events very closely reflect actual happenings in the 1980s and early 1990s as the great ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest were radically devastated, cut to within five percent of their original extent. Many of those thousand- or two-thousand year old trees were pulped for disposable diapers or made into cheap plywood for pouring cement foundations (discussed in detail in my book Song for the Blue Ocean).
Among the novel's many main characters, Powers' scientific character, Patricia Westerford, is drawn largely from real-life Joan Maloof, founder of the Old Growth Forest Network and an acquaintance of mine, a woman with deep insight and passion for forests as highly integrated living systems (not just stands of trees).
Some have said that the earlier parts of the book work better and move faster than the latter parts. While i would not disagree, I found it worth sticking with this book to the end.
A book three decades in the making, one of our greatest writers has honed every word with enormous care as he takes us deep into regions few will get A book three decades in the making, one of our greatest writers has honed every word with enormous care as he takes us deep into regions few will get to. It's been my privilege to get to some of the same regions, which provides me as a reader the advantage of a sense of verification as we see things from Mr Lopez' perspective. It's also been my privilege to have had some personal communication with Mr. Lopez that provides a sliver of insight--mainly that he is completely authentic. But I know him mainly because I've been a fan since someone handed me "Arctic Dreams" while I was above the Arctic Circle doing research on falcons at age 32. A National Book Award winner, Arctic Dreams is a fantastic book, one that Mr. Lopez's wife described to me (if I remember correctly) as a "once in a lifetime" achievement. But her comment came a few minutes before I met Barry for the first time and many years before his last spate of work. I think we can now say that Horizon makes it "twice in a lifetime," at least. A deeply personal book, written from the high hill of a long life of broad vision and deep reflection—and some trauma—Horizon shows a world both magnificent and tragic. Lopez seems to find his heart's home in the vast unpeopled purity of Antarctica, a place he returns to repeatedly. For me as an ecologist, some of the most interesting bits in the book occur when Lopez considers with admirable honesty his interactions with researchers, and theirs with him. But the main reason for giving this book the time it deserves is that it opens an enormous swath of life, time, and reflection, the wisdom of which we are free to mine thanks to Barry Lopez's generosity of spirit and his desire to show us what he has seen and gleaned of life. ...more
Lopez is an exceptionally powerful writer and an extraordinary chooser of words. This work of fiction is built of separate stories of separate individLopez is an exceptionally powerful writer and an extraordinary chooser of words. This work of fiction is built of separate stories of separate individuals. Other reviews praise the distinct voices developed for each story's main character. What makes my review four instead of five stars is that I heard Barry Lopez in each character. Just goes to show, different readers read and hear words differently. As with much of Lopez's stand-out body of work, there is an underlying sadness, a sense of not being at home in the world, or, no, let me revise that; I think this is more accurate: there is an underlying sense of loving the world but not being at home boxed into the various contexts of control that humans have created for themselves, and that we find ourselves powerless to demolish so that we may be free in a real, not artificial, world where the human spirit might flourish in dignity....more
I listened to the audio version and the performance of the reader--and that is the word for it; performance--was simply spectacular. One male reader cI listened to the audio version and the performance of the reader--and that is the word for it; performance--was simply spectacular. One male reader conjured many characters of many voices of differing genders, races, and ages. I loved the history, and thought the character development which spanned several generations and a completely changed set of natural and cultural circumstances as the world (and Florida, where the book is set) changed from the 19th through 20th centuries. Wonderful book, wonderful audio version....more
Little to be added about this remarkable book. The author's earlier life, and especially her co-authored "Cry of the Kalahari" are truly astonishing nLittle to be added about this remarkable book. The author's earlier life, and especially her co-authored "Cry of the Kalahari" are truly astonishing non-fiction. But back to "Crawdads," it's a very remarkably imagined story of the life of a girl from childhood to old age, woven around a murder mystery. The shifting timelines of the childhood and murder investigation (she is accused of the murder when she is a young woman) are wonderfully braided, greatly heightening the tension. The naturalistic coastal settings add color, texture, and flavor (with a high degree of accuracy but with some trivial imperfections not worth quibbling over). She triumphs, finds love, overcomes near-impossible odds and accomplishes her own life in her own way. Happy, poignant ending....more
Bernd Heinrich is in the very top tier of most knowledgeable naturalists writing today. He is a great observer of the natural world around him. I've pBernd Heinrich is in the very top tier of most knowledgeable naturalists writing today. He is a great observer of the natural world around him. I've personally been out walking with him; he astounded me. (The purpose of the visit was to get him to see whales, a first for him; mission accomplished.) Anyway, this book is about the widespread instinct--including among humans--to have a sense of home, a home base, and a desire and ability to return "home." It is not a book about migration per se. A deeper exploration of neural and psychological mechanisms of homing and of migration would, for me, have added a fifth star. But then the book would have had to be 600 pages long....more
Amazingly good. Great story. Wonderfully written. I agree with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas; this might be the best book ever written about dogs. Very to Amazingly good. Great story. Wonderfully written. I agree with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas; this might be the best book ever written about dogs. Very touching and skillfully done. ...more
I finally finished reading the superb Thoreau biography by Laura Walls. One of those books I savored because I did not want it to end.
Every paragraphI finally finished reading the superb Thoreau biography by Laura Walls. One of those books I savored because I did not want it to end.
Every paragraph was excellent. It was like opening up the drapes and windows on a man I’d long considered a hero but knew nothing, really, about. What an incredible person and absolutely excellent book!...more
A surprisingly good book; surprising because it’s titled A Wolf Called Romeo and it’s written in an initially offputtingly breezy style. But it’s loadA surprisingly good book; surprising because it’s titled A Wolf Called Romeo and it’s written in an initially offputtingly breezy style. But it’s loaded with facts about wolves that quite accurately sum up a lot of the science that I recently learned while writing my own book which has a long consideration of wolves (Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel). For 6 years in the early 2000s, a wild wolf cavorted with humans and their dogs just outside Juneau, Alaska. As you'd expect--or maybe the opposite of what you'd expect--the wolf acted better than the people....more
This kind of history usually isn't my thing as a reader, but I'd met the author and as a courtesy he sent it to me. I was absolutely astonished! If yoThis kind of history usually isn't my thing as a reader, but I'd met the author and as a courtesy he sent it to me. I was absolutely astonished! If you think we have leaders who are out-of-control spoiled brats floated by a compliant senate, it is nothing--nothing--compared with Rome with Nero at the helm. Murder, matricide, siblicide, infanticide, and more induced suicides than you can count; it's a wonder Rome could both have been great and then could have allowed this havoc spree that lasted as long as it did. The hubris, cruelty, delusion, and collusion combine to a truly incredible page-turner. Even though it's history (actually, because it is history), I found it oddly potent as escapist reading. And it put today's politics and violent horrors in some perspective; our species has always been scheming and violent, and politics has always been, well, scheming and violent. Actually, we've made some progress. My only reservation about the book is that I would have liked more narrative detail as some of these events unfolded. Add half a star because I appreciated the author sticking close enough to sources to tell us when the sources conflict over certain details, letting it be OK that when we simply don't know, rather than overstating the historical record. ...more