An expert primer on the history of everything.
A geologist skillfully condenses the history of the Earth.
A Harvard professor of natural history and Earth and planetary sciences, Knoll begins when the Earth coalesced from dust and rocks circling the sun. Animals more complex than bacteria do not appear until the halfway point of the book, but few readers will complain. Good evidence for the Earth’s age did not appear until the 20th century, when measuring the decay of radioactive uranium revealed its age at 4.6 billion years. Rocks raining down generated enough heat to keep the Earth molten. By the time it cooled around 4 billion years ago, two substances we take for granted, water and oxygen, were missing. Water arrived from meteorites, which continue to fall, although less often than in previous millennia. Knoll engagingly recounts the theories of how life began along with the startling fact that evidence of microbial life appeared soon after the Earth cooled. It’s possible that life is not a lucky accident but inevitable once certain conditions are present. In the absence of oxygen, primitive organisms lived off alternate sources of energy such as sulfur or iron, which existed in the oceans and hot springs. More than 1 billion years passed before cyanobacteria evolved to extract energy from sunlight and water. This process of photosynthesis produced oxygen, leading eventually to the “Great Oxygenation Event” that marginalized older life forms but jump-started evolution because respiration using oxygen yields far more energy. After another 3 billion years, more complex organisms appeared. Early animals date from 500 million to 600 million years ago. Fish appeared at around 450 million years ago and began walking on land 100 million years later. In later chapters, Knoll speeds up the narrative but maintains a focus on geology as he proceeds through dinosaurs, mammals, continent migration, and catastrophic mass extinctions. Of course, the author’s study of humans dominates the closing section, which recounts hominid evolution and the dismal details of how we are making a mess of things.
An expert primer on the history of everything.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-285391-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Custom House/Morrow
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A charming, thoughtful pleasure for any animal lover.
A celebration of animal companions, mammalian, reptilian, avian, and otherwise.
The Ulysses S. Cat of NPR commentator Simon’s title was a “chunky orange Scottish Fold with endearing floppy ears and a broad, flat face that looked…as if he had been running full steam after a mouse when a door opened and…splat!” He may not have been the most photogenic of critters, but he was a steadfast companion to Simon’s mother and stepfather as the latter suffered illness and death. Other creatures populate Simon’s pages: a betta named Salman Fishdie, a grasshopper named Hoppy, many dogs and cats. Simon ranges widely to collect his stories; among the most affecting is a portrait of the people of Sarajevo under siege by Serbian forces, punctuated by an impatient colleague’s saying to Simon, “I do not want to get shot while doing a fucking pet story.” A good point, that, but Simon is emboldened and moved by the Sarajevans’ and U.N. soldiers’ care for pets displaced from their homes. “In making room for animals at the lowest times of their lives,” he writes, “Sarajevo showed the world real humanitarian aid.” In a somewhat lighter turn, Simon voices the hope that the afterlife will involve meeting again with all the animals and people we have loved, with no hard distinction drawn between birds, dogs, cats, turtles, and other beloved animal companions and other members of one’s family, biological and elective. While recognizing that animals make us better humans, holding unconditional love but eschewing grudges, Simon also decries the misuse of animals, particularly in laboratory settings where other modeling methods can be used that do not visit pain and death on such creatures as chimpanzees and white rats. Writes Simon, meaningfully, “Someday, I’m pretty sure we’ll look back on our use of animals in this way as something brutal.” Amen.
A charming, thoughtful pleasure for any animal lover.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781324117186
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
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