Debunks the perception that rivers exist solely to provide humans with water, power, and transportation.
A primer on the benefits of flooding and the enduring costs of domesticated rivers.
In this posthumously published book, Scott urges his readers “to recognize the animated liveliness of the river and its tributaries“ as he “give[s] voice to all the flora and fauna whose lifeworld centers” on a river’s watershed. His focus is the flood pulse that occurs every year as water from seasonal rains, snow, and glacial melts surges into river basins. The overflow provides nutrients for soils, trees, plants, fish, and mollusks. It supports insect, bird, and animal life that then attracts animals, birds, and fish higher on the food chain, creating a diverse ecosystem. Scott, who founded the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale, pays particular attention to the role of rivers in the evolution of human settlements, from hunter-gatherers to the present. Lurking in the historical shadows are industrialization and nation-states with the capacity to build massive dams, irrigation channels, and levees and engage in flood-control measures indifferent to the ecological and cultural consequences. This argument draws on Scott’s Against the Grain (2017) and Seeing Like a State (1998). To illustrate, he turns to Burma (his preferred name), and the Ayeyarwady (often spelled Irrawaddy) River, which runs nearly the length of the country. He tells of the river’s many meanderings, its long history, its place in the seasonal lives of fishermen and farmers, and the river spirits that are part of people’s daily lives. But Scott seems unsure of the book’s central focus. His three major concerns—the basic knowledge of watershed dynamics, the history of human engagement with rivers, and the Ayeyarwady River—form a somewhat disjointed narrative. Regardless, he has written an informative introduction to the inarguable coalescence of rivers, weather patterns, soils, and the humans and nonhuman creatures in their midst.
Debunks the perception that rivers exist solely to provide humans with water, power, and transportation.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780300278491
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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
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
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