British marine biologist Scales (Poseidon’s Steed: The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality, 2009) reinvigorates conchology and the lost art of seashell appreciation.
Appalled that their reputation for enigmatic splendor as “glorious objects” has become tarnished, replaced with modern, kitschy “inelegant clutter” on counters and shelves, the author diligently explores the purpose and allure of seashells and introduces a selection of scientists and artists who study and create art from them. Uninterested in creating just another comprehensive shell guide, Scales skillfully focuses her narrative primarily on mollusks and how, living or dead, they connect with the human world. Through stories and personal experiences, beginning with her fascination with them as a girl on the beaches of Cornwall, England, and later, sea diving as an adult, she demonstrates her encyclopedic knowledge of Conchifera through absorbing chapters reaching back to the mollusk’s primitive relatives: “all manner of shrimpy, crabby, wormy creatures that look very little like any living species” slithering across a Cambrian seabed. Scales spins spellbinding science throughout, introducing readers to carnivorous cone snails that spit out paralytic darts, the “vacancy chains” of hermit crabs, the lacquered luster of the prized cowry shell, and the fluttery sex lives of sea butterflies and bivalves. Astutely referencing the work of a variety of biologists, fishery scientists, and passionate beachcombers, Scales examines how these chalky exoskeletons and their spiraled patterns are strategically produced by their hosts, considers their symbolism, and ponders the mannerisms in which humans collect once-living objects: “They appeal to the hoarder in us all, the part of us that wants to have and keep things, especially those mementos that remind us of a different time and place.” From a cautionary perspective, however, the author would prefer that admirers “resist temptation and leave them all alone.”
An enchanting, accessible tour of the seashell and its place and purpose within the natural world.Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4729-1136-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Categories: NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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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: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Categories: NATURE | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SURVIVORS & ADVENTURERS | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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