Regreen

Finished January 8

Regreen: New Canadian Ecological Poetry edited by Adam Dickinson and Madhur Anand

The anthology is one I've owned for a while, but only got to reading late last year. As with most poetry I read, it is something I tend to take my time with, reading a poem to two at a time, and thinking about what the poem says.

There are thirty-five poets represented here with the number of poem from each ranging from one to eight. Most are short, a page or two. 

Both editors wrote informative introductions that I found helpful. Besides both of them being poets, Madhur was at the time of this book, the Canada Research Chair in Global Ecological Change at the University of Guelph. I think this brings an interesting consideration to the collection.

The poems are divided into three sections: a triumph of tubers; pristine modernity, the dreams; and a leaf that looks like a mouth. The all have some relation to the environment, sometimes nature-based, sometimes to do with man's activities that affect nature. There is joy and there is regret. There is also hope.

We Loved It All

Finished February 23

We Loved It All: A Memory of Life by Lydia Millet

This is the first nonfiction book by the author and is very hard to classify as it includes so many different things. While Millet has written several works of fiction, she has also had a long career at the Center for Biological Diversity, advocating for wildlife and climate change preparedness. 

This book mixes her personal memories with scientific facts, vignettes of animal and plant interactions with humans, and thoughts about life in general. 

The book is split into three sections, and she works to show our connections to others' experiences, and to life beyond the human. You can feel her emotions around many of these elements. Paragraphs within sections jump from the personal to the other elements, and sometimes feel like an expression of a stream of consciousness, with one thought leading to another. 

There are many things here that reminded me of my own memories of interactions with nature, and that revived knowledge I forgot that I had. There are also times where she taught me something new. This is a book that is hard to rush through, that one needs to sit with, and take time to examine one's reactions and thoughts. 

Miracle Country

Finished September 3

Miracle Country by Kendra Atleework

This memoir draws you in to the author's life in beautiful prose. She grew up in Swall Meadows, a small town north of Bishop, California, in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, which lies between the Sierra Nevadas on the west, and the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains on the east. This is an area where the average annual rainfall is about 5 inches. For decades most of the water from this region has been collected and diverted to Los Angeles, making agriculture in the area extremely difficult. 

The memoir is not told chronologically, but moves around in time. It is separated into five parts: Wind; Wildflowers; Rivers; Moonrise; and Summit. It starts in 2015 with a fire that happened in the fourth year of a bad drought. This choice of beginning gives us a real sense of the environment and what the people there face. They have droughts, blizzards, and fire to deal with every year. 

Kendra is the oldest of three children, with a sister Kaela, and a brother Anthony. Her mother, Jan, was a teacher, avid hiker, and played flute in a local orchestra. Her father, Robert, has done a lot of different things since moving to the area as a young man. He has dredged streams, pumped gas, run a Greyhound office, flown hot air balloons, and runs a map company that makes maps of the region. He also built his own airplane, played trombone in the local orchestra, and is very tall, 6'8". I was intrigued by the house she grew up in, which was built by a retired engineer from the L.A. Dept. of Water and Power from old growth redwood that had been salvaged from water tanks in L.A. 

Kendra and her siblings grew up without television and had only local radio. Instead, they had stories, legends, history, and poetry. Their mother created special places and characters for them and they played in this way as they explored the world around them. 

Kendra's mother died when Kendra was sixteen, and the family fell apart gradually despite her father's efforts. She takes us through what she herself went through, and more briefly what her siblings have experienced. 

She gives us a lot of information about the area she lives in, the Owens Valley, known to the indigenous and Payahuunadu. She also includes a lot of history of the area, and gives passages from other writers that lived or passed through the region. One of these is Mary Austin, who came there in 1892, and witnessed the changes that happened when John Mulholland came up with the plan to capture the water for the city of Los Angeles, 250 miles south. She also talks about the indigenous, the Paiute, who were driven out of the area, into the desert to the east, but returned and stayed. 

Kendra went to college in Los Angeles, and grad school in Minnesota. 

She made the whole area come alive for me, as well as making her own experiences relatable and vivid. A fascinating book. 

Birnam Wood

Finished August 29

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

This was a very interesting read. As the book opens, a landslide on New Zealand's south island has caused a road blockage on Korowai Pass, resulting in a dead end at the north edge of Korowai National Park. The farm just north of the park is owned by Jill and Owen Darvish, Jill having grown up there on her family's farm near the small town of Thorndike. Owen has made a successful career in pest control, and the farm is not currently in use as a farm. Shortly after the landslide, Owen was awarded a knighthood. 

Mira Bunting, one of the founders of a guerrilla gardening group, Birnam Wood, has taken note of this and wonders if this is an opportunity to take their gardening to a new level by taking advantage of this unused land. She decides to go up there and scope things out. 

Mira's co-manager, Shelley Noakes has been growing discontented with the group and her role and is gearing herself up to tell Mira that she wants to leave. With the sudden reappearance of Tony Gallo, another founder of the group, things get more complicated. Tony had gone to Mexico to teach English years ago, but recently found himself dissatisfied there and returned home. Tony has journalist aspirations, and is trying to get his foot in as a freelancer. 

Mira's visit to the farm results in an unexpected meeting between her and Robert Lemoine, an American billionaire. Robert has recently approached Owen Darvish about purchasing the farm property, and offers Mira and her group a chance to prove themselves there. He also offers funding, and this drives Mira to offer the group this chance in a sudden meeting. The group agrees to move forward, but Tony is suspicious of the offer and decides to do some research into the situation. 

His approach to Owen Darvish results in Darvish having questions as well.

The reader is able to see Robert's viewpoint as well, giving us knowledge of his motives and actions that belie what he has professed publicly. 

As the pressure mounts, the situation gets out of control, and unexpected encounters create additional suspense for the reader. 

I found the novel hard to put down as I wanted to see how things turned out. The characters are complex and have motivations that are also complex. There is an obvious 'bad guy' from the outset, and I really wanted him to pay for his actions, and I wanted Tony to get the two things he wanted, love and a chance at journalism. 

The Barren Grounds

Finished July 25

The Barren Grounds by David A. Robertson

This is an amazing beginning to a series of books for kids. The two main characters are indigenous, and the main theme is around the environment and respect.

As you can see from the top of the cover, the series is called The Misewa Saga, and Misewa is the name of the village that the children travel to in the book.

Morgan has been in foster care as far back as she can remember. The couple she is with now are trying hard to make her feel welcome and at home, but she has a problem trusting them due to her past experiences. Eli has only been in care more recently and he has a lot of memories of his family and ties to the indigenous community. He has arrived at the same home as Morgan more recently.

Eli likes to draw and one drawing he made intrigues both children. 

Morgan has ventured into the attic of the house they live in, an area that is unfinished, but has some construction work partially done. A small closet-like space there has the door painted over, not opened in a long time and she retreats into that space when she needs to be alone. When she and Eli attach the picture he drew to the wall there it seems to come alive and connect their world to the wintry one they can see there. And the animal they see moves toward them. 

As the children react, Morgan is fearful, but Eli is curious and wants to explore this new world. When Morgan follows him, they discover a world where an outsider has upset the balance of nature and caused immense damage to the environment and the creatures who live there. Their initial contact is the creature they saw, Ochek (Fisher). With Eli familiar with the indigenous language, and some of the behaviours and activities, Morgan finds herself connecting to her own past in an unexpected way.  As they encounter another creature Arik (Squirrel), the discover that they may be able to help this world recover what has been lost.

I found this book reminded me a bit of the world of Narnia, with a doorway into a wintry world where creatures talk and walk like humans. But it has a distinctly indigenous element, with the language and the ties to the living world. 

This promises to be a very interesting series.

Nightbird

Finished March 9

Nightbird by Alice Hoffman

I have enjoyed Alice Hoffman's books and until I came across this one, didn't realize that she had written books for children as well. This story takes place in the small town of Sidwell in the Berkshire mountains. Twig's mom grew up in the town and when Twig was young, they would visit their grandparents there. But after they died, Twig and her mom moved back to town. Her brother, James, also moved back with them, but their father did not. Twig was quite young when this happened and she doesn't really remember her father. James doesn't leave the house very much because he has a secret, and it is one not easily hidden. 

Sidwell is a town that has a legend of a monster, and recently there has been graffiti appearing to be written by the monster warning of consequences should his home be destroyed. The home in question is the forested area of town, just behind Twig's house and quite extensive. It is owned by a family that doesn't visit often, and there have been rumours that they might be planning to sell it to developers. Next door to Twig's house is a dilapidated cottage, that has been empty for decades. Now the family that owns it has suddenly moved back and they have two daughters, one, Julia, the same age as Twig. But Twig's mother warns her against the house and its occupants as it was the home of witches, and once, long ago, a young woman from that family cursed the men in Twig's family. 

As the town ramps up the focus on fabled monsters, Twig fears for her brother James, and his future. She wants him to be happy, but can he still be himself?

I loved this book about this small town, the fear of what we don't know or understand, and the power of love. Twig is a researcher and she looks for information, doesn't just accept what she's told. She has supportive adults in her life, and learns how to be a friend. 

Fire and Ice

Finished December 14

Fire and Ice: Soot, Solidarity, and Survival on the Roof of the World by Jonathan Mingle

This book uses a small village in the Himalayas as a focal point for environmental concerns in a way that makes it even more relevant and personal. Mingle first met the people of the village of Kumik in the Zanskar valley of the Himalayan mountains of north west India in 2012 when he was asked for advice on how to build homes to take advantage of passive solar energy, something he has experience in. The village of Kumik is one of the oldest villages in this part of the world, and depends on water from the glacier above for both its daily life and its sustaining agriculture. But the water has been providing less and less over the years, with the glacier shrinking and most of the remaining meltoff going down the other side of the mountain to other villages. 

The village people have been looking at their options as the fields they plant each year decrease and men work at other jobs, away from the village more and more. They have decided to move the village to a new location, where they can arrange irrigation from a nearby river. They will be building a new village from scratch, and want to do it in a way that takes advantage of things like solar energy as much as they can.

Through Mingle, we see the intricacies of village life, how they depend on each other, and the long history of the social contract "chu len me len chaden" which has neighbours supporting each other with fire and water. Violators of the social system are cut off from both these necessities, putting them in the position of not being able to survive. 

We see his work and his interactions with the villages over a couple of years as they gradually build their new village, have many meetings and make many decisions, and work together for their future.

Mingle looks at why glaciers are shrinking and the role not only of carbon dioxide, but also of black carbon. Black carbon, often appearing as soot has many effects. Not only does it pollute existing glaciers and cause them to heat more and thus shrink more quickly, it also has huge effects on human health (and indeed the health of all living things). Thousands of people die every year due to its effects, all around the world. Black carbon's health effects are seen locally, while its environmental effects are global. Many of the world's poorer countries use cooking and heating fuel that contributes to the production of black carbon, not only through the type of fuel, but also through the way that it is burned, leaving unburned particulates in the nearby atmosphere, both in homes and in the air around communities. It is also an output from the use of diesel fuel, often used for generators in  remote communities, but also transportation around the world. Even in the more developed world, the use of wood burning stoves and heaters contributes to this pollutant. 

I learned that the colour of the flame is a strong indicator of the presence of black carbon as an output.The bluer the flame, the cleaner burning it is. That orange glow we admire is not a healthy sign. 

In many instances this is something that can be tackled even more easily than the issue of carbon dioxide (although that can't be ignored). Development and distribution of cleaner burning stoves and heaters needs investment and government support worldwide. The infrastructure and training to support maintenance of these new units is key as well. The use of local solar generators can be another tool for reducing black carbon. In the developed world, replacing wood stoves with pellet stoves can help this effort. 

I learned a lot from this book, and it gave me hope that we can work together to improve the lot of people, from this small village of hardworking people in the Himalayas to our own communities in cities and suburbs. This recent case of the role of this kind of pollution in the death of a young girl in London spoke to its impact in cities. 

Highly recommended.

Benjamin's Blue Feet

Finished September 3
Benjamin's Blue Feet by Sue Macartney

This lovely picture book features Benjamin a young blue-footed booby, a bird native to the Galapagos Islands. Benjamin is a bird that like to gather items he's found and this aspect of the book is a great introduction into the vast amount of garbage littering our oceans. He calls his finds treasures and gives them names that describe them. It is when he finds a shiny object that reflects his image that he then compares himself to other birds that he sees around him, finding himself not measuring up to what he sees and likes in other creatures. His beak is too straight and long, unlike that of the Warbler. His wings are also long and wide with bristles, and he likes the penguin's sleek wings better. But his feet bring him more bad feelings, being large and blue and floppy, unlike the sticky clawed toes of the iguana.
When Benjamin uses his treasures to alter these parts of his appearance, he thinks he has improved himself, despite the laughter he now seems to generate from those who see him, but when he goes about his normal activities, he finds that his body the way it was designed is all as it should be, and what he saw as flaws are features that help him to survive and thrive in his environment. A great view on self-image, individualization, and body consciousness.
The book ends with a one-page statement about the issues raised in the book, particularly that of ocean trash. The front end papers also have wonderful drawing of other Galapagos creatures with their names. On the dedication page, the publisher also has a link to a downloadable glossary of information about the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands.
The illustrations here are lovely and eye-catching, and the expressions are perfect for each scenario. A lovely picture book for every child's collection.

Protecting Pollinators

Finished July 28
Protecting Pollinators: How to Save the Creatures That Feed Our World by Jodi Helmer

This book is full of information on the importance of pollinators and how we can act to help them survive. Pollinators are responsible for one-third of the crops that feed us, but half of their 200,000 species are threatened, some quite significantly. The percentage of pollinator-dependent food crops has increased 300 percent in the last 50 years, but despite this reliance, the pollinators themselves are more endangered than ever. This book is mostly focused on the United States, but as pollinators don't recognize borders, discussion sometimes goes beyond.
This book is organized into seven chapters. Within each chapter there are side columns that go deeper into certain aspects of the subject. Chapter One, Bees and Beyond tells us about the wide range of pollinators that exist, beyond just the ones that easily come to mind like bees and butterflys. Helmer gives information on the state of research into different pollinators and the public awareness of them. Side columns here are Plant Sex, The Rusty-Patched Bumblebee Made History, Raise Your Glass to Pollinating Bats (main pollinators of agave, from whence tequila), Are High-Tech Drones the Next-Generation Pollinators?, A Presidential Plea to Protect Pollinators (Obama administration), and Pollinators in Peril.
Chapter Two, No Place Like Home, talks about pollinator habitat and feeding needs. Here Helmer discusses the ways that habitat, even in small plots, can be added back to both urban and rural areas. Side columns here are Habitat Affects Honey Flavor (I love my buckwheat honey!), Pollinator Strips Might Not Work, A Cotton-Pickin' Boost for Pollinators, Could the Farm Bill Help Pollinators?, and Fireflies Are Burning Out.
Chapter Three, Taming Toxins brings into discussion the various chemicals, like pesticides and non-native flora and fauna, that have affected pollinators. Some are outright lethal, others are sublethal in that they affect the pollinator physiology and behaviour and make them less able to do their work. Side columns here are The Pests Decimating Honeybee Colonies, Harmful Herbicides, Neonics Not Welcome, White-Nose Syndrome and Pesticides, and Could Crop Insurance Promote Pesticide Use?
Chapter Four, The Need for Native Plants, looks at how the introduction of plants from other parts of the world have driven out some native plants the pollinators rely upon, or due to their different flowering cycle, changed their migratory habits. Side columns here are Venus Flytraps Control Their Appetites for Survival, Identifying Invasive Species, Ten Pollinator-Friendly Native Plants, Doggy Detective Keeps Bees Safe, Replacing Honeybees with Native Pollinators, Adopt a Trail, Eat the Invaders (some tasty invasive species can be eaten into extinction), and Caprine Cleaning Crew.
Chapter Five, Lessons from a Warming Planet discusses how climate change is affecting pollinators. In some cases the plants that pollinators rely on and the pollinators are in sync as the climate grows warmer, but in other cases they are not, which can mean the pollinator appears in the spring before or after their food source has, leading to population decline or possible extinction. Side columns here are Bats Help Save the Rainforest, Developing Mite-Resistant Bees, Climate Change Could Be Poisoning Monarchs, and Climate Change Helps Invasive Species Thrive.
Chapter Six, Helping Without Hurting, discusses how some things people are doing that they think are helping are not, and what they could do that is similar but different that would be a real help to the pollinators. Side columns here are Retailers Help Keep Gardens Neonic-Free, The Unexpected Consequence of Your Favorite Drink (more than you knew about almond milk), A Desire to Help the Bees Drives Honey Demand, Beekeepers Feel the Sting of Stolen Hives, Are Bee Hotels Bad for Bees?, and Don't Forget About Trees.
Chapter Seven, Stand Up and Be Counted discusses the huge impact that citizen scientists can have on data collection, observation, and positive change. Side columns are Putting Milkweed on the Map, Ten Principles of Citizen Science, Pollinators Seek Out Urban Addresses, Three Ways the Public Participates in Citizen Science, Citizen Scientists Honor the Stars, and the important Twenty-Nine Ways You Can Help Protect Pollinators.
There is also an extensive bibliography for those who want to learn more.
This is a great resource to learn about this important and critical subject.

Music for Tigers

Finished July 2
Music for Tigers by Michelle Kadarusman

This fantastic middle school book brings together the beauty of music and the environment along with human diversity. Louisa is the narrator here and she has been sent from her home in Canada to stay for the summer with her veterinarian uncle in Tasmania. Louisa's mom is Australian and engaged in a research study that would leave Louisa home alone for longer than her parents like. Louisa has brought her violin with her, intending to keep up her practicing for an upcoming audition for the Toronto Children's Symphony Orchestra. The rest of her family is into science and she doesn't feel they understand her interests.
When her uncle Ruff meets her at the bus and leads her into the rainforest, she is made suddenly aware of the new environment that she will be living in for the next few weeks. The family camp is in poor repair, and lacks many of the things that Louisa would expect. She is staying in a cabin last used by her older sister several years ago, and not cleaned in preparation for her visit. The only electricity in in the main cabin where the kitchen and her uncle's sleeping quarters are.
Luckily the environmental camp near by, run by a childhood friend of Louisa's mom, offers an Internet connection and other amenities. The son of the camp director, Colin, is close to Louisa in age and comes to stay at her uncle's camp for a variety of reasons. Colin is a great character, and his attitude helps Louisa to come out of her shell, as does the family history that Ruff shares with her.
As Louisa learns about the history of this part of Australia, about the animals that live here and that have become endangered, she finds herself more interested in the science than she has before. And some of the animals might be interested in her music as well.
Colin is on the autism spectrum and has special interests in the environment and in cooking, which is a great help to Ruff and Louisa. And as Louisa and Colin begin their friendship, they find they both have things to offer each other and more in common than they might have thought.
I really enjoyed learning about this part of the world, a part of Australia that I have not visited, and about the wildlife that is native to it. I also enjoyed seeing Louisa grow over the course of the book and become more engaged with people and the world around her, while still valuing her music.

The Songlines

Finished January 26
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, illustrations by Simon Pemberton

I've had this one on my shelf for a while, but Australia being in the news lately made my pick it up. It was a relatively easy read, with most of the book being a fictionalized version of the author's short time in the Australian outback among aboriginal people and those working with them. In particular it features a man whose parents emigrated from Russia, and who is working with aboriginal people to identify sacred places so the railway they are building can avoid causing more damage than it naturally will just by existing.
The idea of songlines as a birthright and a responsibility is made very clear, and I liked the way that the people were shown to be intelligent and with real character, not stereotypes. There was recognition of the struggles they are facing, and the harms done to them.
As the book progresses, when Bruce spends some time alone in a small outback town, stranded by the rain, he delves into his journals and notebooks and pulls out a bunch of quotes, anecdotes, and other passages that look at man's relationship to the world, to animals, to nature, to the idea of moving around as a way of life. This was also interesting, but these sections took more time to separate ideas and make connections.
My edition also had a very useful introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare that gave me background and context for the book, that made my reading more meaningful.

Bat Citizens

Finished March 13
Bat Citizens: Defending the Ninjas of the Night by Rob Laidlaw

This informative book is about a number of young people who have become engaged with bats. Some with saving bat habitats. Some with helping with research into bats, the diseases that affect them, or their behaviour. Some with working to help people understand the important role bats play in the ecosystems they live in, and educating people about the facts and myths about this elusive mammal.
I've always been kind of interested in bats, first encountering them personally as a teenager at a summer cottage. After reading about them in Diane Ackerman's book The Moon by Whale Light, I developed a stronger interest.
This book is a great way for kids to learn more about bats and the different species that exist from miniscule to ones with two metre wingspans. There are lots of pictures, including a poster that comes with the book, and the format has short single page articles on different bats, traits, and the defenders. There are also numerous sidebars of Bat Facts, and Batty Ideas that will appeal to kids. The final pages include a list of ways that the reader can help bats, organizations that help bats, and a glossary of terms that will help with understanding.
This will make a great addition to public and school libraries, and, hopefully, engage more young people in defending bats and their environment.

Wandering Home

Finished January 16
Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape by Bill McKibben

This memoir covers a short period in the the author's life, a couple of weeks one summer where he walked from his home in Vermont (very near one of Robert Frost's homes) to a previous home in the New York state Adirondacks.
Along the way, he walks some of the time alone, and some of the time with friends from the area. He writes about the landscape he is moving through, the weather, the environmental issues, the social issues, the history of these places, and his own connections, memories, and impressions of these places.
There is a map at the front, showing his path for this trip. The people he visits and travels with include other authors, other environmentalists, historians, farmers, gardeners, vintners, beekeepers, river rafters, and historians. All the them have connections to the last themselves, and are in touch with nature and its wonder.
A book to savour, and one that makes you both hopeful and eager to go out and explore nature yourself.

Marrow Island

Finished January 4
Marrow Island by Alexis M. Smith

I enjoyed the previous book I read by this author, Glaciers, and so picked this up when I saw it on the shelf at the library.
The main character here is Lucie Bowen. Lucie is a journalist and as the book begins, returns to the house she grew up in on Orwell Island off the coast of Seattle. This is the first time she has been back since fleeing the island after a devastating earthquake when she was just twelve years old.
Her mother managed to hold on to and repair the cottage they lived in, and has now transferred ownership over to her. Lucie's childhood friend Katie, whom she lost touch with after the tragedy, has recently sent her a letter, letting Lucie know that she is working with a small group of people on a nearby island, Marrow Island. Marrow Island was the center of a second tragedy, caused by the earthquake, of a fire and environmental disaster at an oil refinery. The island was contaminated and all residents were evacuated and not allowed to return. Many of those on Marrow Island at the time died and some bodies were never recovered, among them Lucie's father.
It is hard for Lucie to go back, but at Katie's invitation to see how the colony works, she goes over for a couple of days, as does a parks officer who is looking at the state of the government park on the island to see if work can be done to reopen it.
As we see Lucie learn about the colony that Katie lives with and meet other members, we see her question her observations. She is, after all, a journalist, despite the personal ties she has to the location and people there.
This story alternates with a later narrative, also by Lucie, more than 18 months after this visit to Marrow. We gradually learn something bad happened, and Lucie is now living with her boyfriend, a parks officer, in a remote forest cabin on the mainland. She spends her days wandering the woods, writing, and generally avoiding facing what happened. When something happens to call her back to those events and then a fire threatens her new sanctuary, Lucie responds.
This is a moving book, The reader really gets inside Lucie's head, seeing things as she sees them, but unsure of what importance to place on them.

Cathedral of the Wild

Finished March 31
Cathedral of the Wild: An African Journey Home by Boyd Varty, read by the author

This memoir takes us through Boyd's life with background into his parents' lives. Londolozi was founded by Boyd's grandfather as a hunting camp, and transformed by his father and uncle into a nature reserve. Its place in South Africa set it apart, operating outside the normal apartheid regime through the working together of the Varty family and the local people. Boyd, named for his grandfather, grew up in this environment of a reverence for nature and respect for the local skills and knowledge of the people. Boyd's uncle developed into a well-known nature documentary maker, often involving Boyd and his older sister on the filming. From a young age, Boyd learned about his environment and how to manage it so that the wild animals would flourish.
As the visitors to the refuge came and were changed by their experience, Boyd learned from them, and ventured further afield to help his own spirit grow more resilient.
This is a novel of environmental entrepreneurship, connection to nature and passion for the world we share. Boyd reading his own words made it more intense and personal.
This is a story of hope for the future as well, one that encourages the reader to find their own path to fulfillment and happiness.

On Looking

Finished July 31
On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz

This book began with the author realizing that she wasn't seeing her surroundings in many ways when she took walks in her neighbourhood. She began thinking about what she was missing, and sought out different people with different backgrounds, expertise, and interests to help her see her surroundings in different ways. She wanted to know what she was missing.
First she deliberately took a walk in her neighbourhood, taking notes on what she was noticing and her insights about those things. Some of the subsequent walks are in her own city of New York, but others are in the other cities, more convenient to the experts that she walked with.
Her first walk was with her toddler son, as she tried to let him guide the walk as much as possible and took note of what captured his interest, sometimes asking him questions to draw out what he was feeling or what appealed to him. She found, of course, that his perspective was different than hers, being closer to the ground and thus seeing things at that level more immediately. He was attracted to colours, shapes, and textures, wanting to experience his surroundings with fingers, feet, and sometimes his tongue.He noticed sounds and looked for their origins. He is fascinated with the new, things that weren't there on his last walk. He greeted and talked to objects along the route as if they were living creatures. He points, he stares, especially at people who seem unusual to him. He used a lot of nonverbal communication, gesturing and facial expressions. He was fascinated with his own shadow and the shadows of other things.
Her next walk was with a geologist, a man who often environmental outings within the city. She learns to recognize the different stones in the city, both those used in buildings and those in natural elements. She sees the fossil history in the stones and learns to recognize the signs of tools that were used in shaping the stones.
Next up is a typographer, a man who knows his fonts and the history of signage. This noticing looks at form and function, and seeing not only what signs look good, but why. Noticing the details of signage and recognizing mass-produced as opposed to hand-done. To see letters done artfully with thought to their purpose and placement and those done without.
She then walks with a friend who is an illustrator. They venture into open doors, stood on street corners, sat on benches. Her friend is a collector of the ordinary, drawing pictures of objects that take the ordinary and make them unique. They interacted with other people they encountered. Instead of just looking, they interacted with objects and people along their route, veering off when something caught their interest.
The next series of walks concentrated more on the animate. First, with a field naturalist specializing in insects and other invertebrates. Horowitz learned to recognize the signs of insect presence, to identify the traces that insects leave behind. This was another walk that veered off when something caught their interest nearby, on walls, in tree pits, on the leaves of trees and bushes, in dumpsters.
She then walks with a wildlife scientist, looking for signs of urban wildlife. From raccoons, rats, and squirrels to starlings, pigeons, and other birds, many animals live in cities. They adjust themselves to their environment, using tall buildings like cliff-faces, becoming active at night when humans are less active, finding paths between areas, and developing nooks and crannies as homes. Once they start looking they notice more signs of animal presence.
Her next walk is with a man who specializes in the use of urban space. He watches how people behave in spaces, how things like street furniture, sidewalk vendors and shop windows can slow people down. To him a good urban experience is one that encourages you to slow down and loiter. He studies the movement of people, how they move in groups, how people move when they meet others as they walk, the subtle dance of movement between strangers. She learns that there are three simple rules most of use abide by: avoid bumping into others, while staying comfortably close; follow whoever is in front of you; and keep up with those next to you. The rules boil down to avoidance, alignment and attraction, and explain the movement of groups not just in people but also other creatures. Without consciously realizing it, we all watch others and react to their movements. We slip and slide as we move past others coming towards us, we notice where others are moving towards and move to avoid their path, The advent of mobile devices has had an impact on this and they notice that too. People concentrating on devices don't participate in this dance, and create disruptions in movement. They notice divisions on the street, sidewalks, curbs, and other visible differences that influence how people move through an environment.
Her next companion is a doctor skilled in the practice of diagnosis by visual inspection. As they walk, he notes the slight differences in how people carry themselves, how they move, that are signs as to illnesses or physical injuries. He has worked with medical students, teaching them to really look at their patients to get clues as to who they are and what is important to them. They look at gait, the way clothing hangs, physical characteristics, smell, and sound.
She takes a walk with a blind woman, learning how she uses her other senses to help tell her what is around her. She can sense the movement of air to tell when she reaches an open space such as a street corner, and uses objects that she touches to orient herself in her surroundings. She uses her cane to tell her something about the tactile nature of the surface she is moving towards, and the sound of the taps to determine all surrounding surfaces.
Walking with a sound designer, she notes the difference between sound and noise. He talks about the differences between small sounds like tire noise that tell you whether the pavement is wet or dry. She learns how echoes reinforce sounds, and how different environments affect sounds in different ways. She learns how she physically feels some sounds, especially deeper rumbles.
She takes a walk with a dog to observe how it explores its environment, much of it based on smell. She noticed how the dog licked its nose to better sense upcoming smells, and how it started at the edge of smells, working inward.
For all of her walks she does additional research into the subject speciality, into the history of different inputs, into the science of it all.
This is a book that will change the way you take your own walks, at least for a while, as you open yourself up to new experiences.

Dry Store Room No. 1

Finished December 28
Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey

This book is a personal exploration of the the work going on at the Natural History Museum in London, and the people doing that work. Fortey worked at the Museum for decades, specializing in trilobites. The book tells a little of his own history, but also looks at the various departments contained within the Museum, from his initial wanderings as a young scientist there to those projects that caught his interest over the years. He looks at how these projects relate to the larger world, and how the current funding model may not meet the real needs of science going forward, particularly in light of the environmental challenges our world is now facing.
Fortey begins with an initial look at the vast network of rooms, offices, labs, and storage areas behind the public galleries, continues with a chapter explaining taxonomy, the naming of names, and how this is the underlying language that connects scientists work around the world and across time.
He then looks at the traditional world of natural science and how that has changed over time.
The next four chapters look at particular departments within the museum, and at a selection of the projects and personalities that have caught Fortey's interest. These include animals (both current and fossilized), plants (again, both current and fossilized), insects (the largest area of species and in many ways the most challenging), and geology (how rocks can tell us history, evolution, migration, and other stories about our world). The next chapter brings all of these together, and shows where the Museum is now in terms of research and priorities.
The last chapter is a call to all of us to recognize how important this work is to our world, our future, and our continuing existence.
A personal, yet highly enlightening look at the world of natural science, with its diversity, range of studies, and the people that dedicate their lives to it.

Beautiful Whale

Finished June 2
Beautiful Whale by Bryant Austin, foreword by Sylvia A. Earle

This book contains amazing photographs of whales. Humpback whales in Tonga. Sperm whales in the Caribbean. Dwarf minke whales at the Great Barrier Reef. Following a close encounter with a whale Austin was driven to pursue the goal of taking life-size composite portraits of whales. So very few humans get to have an encounter with a whale that we don't get to see their beauty and intelligence and thus disregard how our actions affect their environment. To take these photographs Austin has to be very close to the whales, remaining as still as possible while they slowly moved past him. As he describes his experiences, you realize the gentleness and curiosity of these large creatures.
Austin sold his vehicles, house, and camera equipment to finance this project when fund-raising didn't provide enough. The exhibitions he was able to mount drew responses better than he had hoped and brought increased attention to these little known animals.

Scat

Finished December 6
Scat by Carl Hiaasen

This children's novel is another eco-thriller, this one featuring Nick, who is in the eighth grade and lives near the Florida Everglades. After a class trip to the Everglades, biology teacher Mrs. Stark appears to be missing. Nick and his best friend Marta are determined to figure out what is really going on with her disappearance. On her last day in class she had an altercation with a student, Duane (also known as Smoke).  At first Duane seems to be missing too, but when he turns up again, he is a changed student. What is going on?
On the class trip to the Everglades, Nick hopes to see a panther, an endangered species, but the trip is cut short. He thinks he heard a panther's cry, but isn't sure.
Meanwhile Nick is also dealing with missing his father who is serving in Iraq.
Lots going on, with an emphasis on the environment, and strong female characters as well as male.

Wild Thing

Finished April 7
Wild Thing by Josh Bazell
I loved Bazell's first book, Beat the Reaper, and was looking forward to the continuing saga of Pietro Brnwa, former hitman and now doctor in the witness protection program. Here, under the name Lionel Azimuth, he starts the novel working as a doctor on a cruise ship, an unhappy existence. Then he gets asked by a reclusive billionaire to go to a remote lake in the Boundary Waters area between Minnesota and Manitoba to see if the rumours of a legendary water creature are true. His job is to protect Violet Hurst, a paleontologist also on the trip. Violet is a character to love, outspoken and self-assured. Azimuth is drawn to her, but remembers what happened to his last girlfriend and is less than eager to get involved with someone.
He is also a bit nervous around water, given his recent experiences in the previous novel. But he is also tired of constantly looking over his shoulder, wondering when someone will have found his trail again.
The story of the water creature is an interesting one, with lots of things going on, some interesting characters making an appearance, and constant surprises.
But Bazell offers more. Following the novel action is an article by Violet on global warming and the possibility tipping point. Then following that, is a section on Bazell's sources for everything going on here, from politics to the environment, science to pop culture. Bazell is a man with varied interests and strong curiosity along with high intelligence and that comes out here.
Yes, a great thriller, but so, so much more.