Tag Archives: book review

Nonfiction November 2023 Week 1: Your Year in Nonfiction

I’m delighted to be taking part in this year’s Nonfiction November, an annual celebration by and for nonfiction book bloggers. Week 1 is hosted by Heather @ Based on a True Story. The writing prompt is: Celebrate your year of nonfiction. … Continue reading

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The Spirit of Green

In The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World, Yale economics professor William D. Nordhaus examines a wide range of economic, social and political issues from a Green perspective. Nordhaus won the 2018 Nobel Prize … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Economics, Environment | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Babel: An Arcane History

Once or twice a year I take a break from nonfiction and read a novel. This time it was R. F. Kuang’s Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution. Quite a mouthful. I’ll … Continue reading

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Crow Planet

On a recent holiday in Ireland, we encountered several species of birds from the crow family that are quite different from the American Crow we see almost every day at home. The Hooded Crow has a black head but a … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Environment | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Some Assembly Required

Last month, I reviewed The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen. It’s all about the destruction of life through mass extinctions. Fascinating but grim. The book left me with a nagging question, though: after each mass extinction how could … Continue reading

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The Ends of the World

You might think a 290-page deep dive into mass extinction would be the most depressing book ever. But The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen is … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Environment | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Under a White Sky

Whether you believe that God gave man dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” or that humans have spent the last two hundred thousand years or so winning the Darwinian race, there’s … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Environment | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Life on the Rocks: Building a Future for Coral Reefs

I was expecting this book to be full of dismal doom and gloom, but it was surprisingly hopeful. Then again, it was written before this year’s horrendous record-breaking ocean heat waves. More on this later. Coral reefs are under existential … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Environment | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Climate Book

Climate change is happening now. Record-setting heatwaves, devastating forest fires, intense tropical storms and extreme flooding are no longer distant predictions, they’re daily events. In The Climate Book, Swedish environmental activist Geta Thunberg has gathered the expertise of over 100 … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Environment | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — and How to Think Deeply Again

Do you have trouble focusing these days? Are you getting interrupted by so many notifications, beeps and pings that you can’t concentrate on anything? Are you reaching for your phone every two minutes to check for the latest updates, likes … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Health and wellness | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments