A fact-filled and amusing trek through nature’s dark side that adroitly combines learning and the yuck factor.
The host of Animal Planet’s Monsters Inside Me explores the world of parasites and their human hosts.
Evolutionary biologist Riskin paints a disgusting yet highly entertaining and informative canvas illustrating how living things use behaviors that are often gross and frightening to survive and thrive. The author is a passionate observer of bats, and his career studying them in their various habitats around the world has given him distinct impressions of Mother Nature. Rather than the gentle, incomplete and utopian vision presented by marketers and the media, the author argues for a different perspective. While not dismissing the gifts provided by the natural world, humans should also understand the other side of our natural environment. “I think the disgusting, immoral, and violent side of nature, the side that the grocery stores and shampoo commercials leave out, contains its most awe-inspiring and beautiful parts,” writes the author. Devoting a chapter to each of the seven deadly sins— greed, lust, sloth, gluttony, envy, wrath and pride—Riskin takes readers through remarkable scientific territory. Discussing sloth, the author tears down preconceptions surrounding the idea of nature being a “perfect model of hard work,” sharing stories of parasites who mooch off their hosts, including vampire bats that eat nothing but blood; worms that can grow to four inches long in the human body and cause elephantiasis. In the chapter on wrath, Riskin explodes the myth of nature as a peaceable kingdom. The author’s narrative examining killer whales’ instincts, especially those in captivity, jolts the senses. He explains the difference between venom and poison while discussing poisonous snakes, and woven throughout the narrative are queries surrounding the “roots of fatherly love,” arising from the birth of his son and the role of nature in this relationship.
A fact-filled and amusing trek through nature’s dark side that adroitly combines learning and the yuck factor.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0754-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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