A charming yet quirky book that may puzzle readers outside the deserts of the American Southwest, who are accustomed only to...
An unconventional ode to the wonders of mesquite.
Call it a love affair or an obsession: Award-winning nature writer and ethnobiologist Nabhan (Ethnobiology for the Future: Linking Cultural and Ecological Diversity, 2016, etc.) has a thing for mesquite. Early on he writes rapturously of his desire to become a tree, or at least to become more like a tree—and not just any tree. In his view, the mesquite is of singular importance as an icon, a framer of one’s worldview, a foodstuff, a beverage, a seasoning, a medicine, an antiseptic, a source of fiber and fuel, and a resource for architects and artisans. The author also argues that mesquite has feelings and intelligence, defending this thesis with down-to-earth stories about its remarkable abilities to heal itself, to engage with and offer nourishment and pleasure to its flora and fauna neighbors, and to shape its environment. Nabhan has clearly spent considerable time as an observer of mesquite, and he has a way with words, sometimes punning, sometimes waxing poetic, and never, it seems, holding back in his enthusiasm for his subject. He invites readers to pledge allegiance with him “to this flagship species of the United Desert States of America, and to the mycorrhizal mass on which it stands, one cohesive nation in all creation, its flora and fauna indivisible, with love fests and wild times for all.” Mixed into this odd, sometimes preachy, and often emotional mélange is plenty of solid information about mesquite, its history, and its utility. An activist in the local food movement, Nabhan concludes with 11 mesquite recipes, some quite labor intensive, and detailed instructions for harvesting and processing the pods.
A charming yet quirky book that may puzzle readers outside the deserts of the American Southwest, who are accustomed only to supermarket bags of mesquite for their charcoal smokers.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-60358-830-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Chelsea Green
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
A quirky wonder of a book.
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. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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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