An elite grouping of very readable and informative articles on some of today’s most challenging and colorful scientific...
Splendid anthology of the year’s finest science and nature articles, curated and introduced by the New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer.
Although varied in theme and subject, the pieces work well as a set, offering many innovative ideas, theories, critiques, and observations to pay overall tribute to human curiosity. These 27 articles display creativity and even playfulness as the authors break down complex scientific subjects for the average reader. Roy F. Baumeister takes a fresh look at some old myths about human aggression; Frederick J. Crews explores the strange world of the anti-Darwinists and the battle over Creationism; Joy Williams submits a memoir of her life as the land-owning neighbor of a lagoon; and Gordon Grice shares a close encounter with the re-emergent mountain lion, an inspiring but deadly creature whose numbers are now increasing where agriculture and residential sprawl meet former wilderness. Barbara Ehrenreich contributes a thoughtful essay about her breast cancer diagnosis and arrival at the gates of the sometimes tacky subculture she calls “Cancerland” (also included in Gould’s The Best American Essays 2002, see below); Malcolm Gladwell grades the life and work of SAT-buster Stanley H. Kaplan; and Gary Greenberg, following the saga of a terminally ill little boy whose role as an organ donor gives his short life meaning, examines prevalent legal, social, and medical notions about “brain death.” Two timely favorites here will be “Why McDonald’s Fries Taste So Good,” by Eric Schlosser (from his bestselling book, Fast Food Nation), and Dennis Overbye’s “How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science,” a historical overview that will fascinate readers newly curious about the Arab world. Controversial topics include the rights of the dying, the singular gift (or burden) of motherhood, and the grim reality of shock therapy, explored with often provocative results. But the collection’s real noteworthiness comes from its authors’ consistently bright insights and buoyant prose.
An elite grouping of very readable and informative articles on some of today’s most challenging and colorful scientific issues.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-08297-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
Not only the definitive life, but a tour de force by a master.
One of history’s most prolific inventors receives his due from one of the world’s greatest biographers.
Pulitzer and National Book Award winner Morris (This Living Hand and Other Essays, 2012, etc.), who died this year, agrees that Thomas Edison (1847-1931) almost certainly said, “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,” and few readers of this outstanding biography will doubt that he was the quintessential workaholic. Raised in a middle-class Michigan family, Edison displayed an obsessive entrepreneurial spirit from childhood. As an adolescent, he ran a thriving business selling food and newspapers on a local railroad. Learning Morse code, he spent the Civil War as a telegrapher, impressing colleagues with his speed and superiors with his ability to improve the equipment. In 1870, he opened his own shop to produce inventions to order. By 1876, he had money to build a large laboratory in New Jersey, possibly the world’s first industrial research facility. Never a loner, Edison hired talented people to assist him. The dazzling results included the first commercially successful light bulb for which, Morris reminds readers, he invented the entire system: dynamo, wires, transformers, connections, and switches. Critics proclaim that Edison’s innovations (motion pictures, fluoroscope, rechargeable batteries, mimeograph, etc.) were merely improvements on others’ work, but this is mostly a matter of sour grapes. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was a clunky, short-range device until it added Edison’s carbon microphone. And his phonograph flabbergasted everyone. Humans had been making images long before Daguerre, but no one had ever reproduced sound. Morris rivetingly describes the personalities, business details, and practical uses of Edison’s inventions as well as the massive technical details of years of research and trial and error for both his triumphs and his failures. For no obvious reason, the author writes in reverse chronological order, beginning in 1920, with each of the seven following chapters backtracking a decade. It may not satisfy all readers, but it works.
Not only the definitive life, but a tour de force by a master.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9311-0
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
A book that describes what kangaroos do and offers unusually beautiful pictures of them doing it. One old male bending forward while scratching his back looks like nothing else found in nature- -except maybe a curmudgeonly old baseball manager with arthritis in the late innings of another losing game (in fact, baseball players would appear to be the only animals who scratch themselves as much as kangaroos do—bellies, underarms, Iwago captures every permutation of scratching). At other times, they look preternaturally graceful and serene. Some of Iwago's (Mitsuaki Iwago's Whales, not reviewed) photographic compositions flirt with anthropomorphism and slyly play to our urge to see ourselves in the animals. But kangaroos are so singular that there's always something about the cant of a head or the drape of a limb that makes you think you flatter yourself that there is any kinship. They remain wondrously different.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8118-0785-1
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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