An eclectic and fascinating collection that will leave readers wanting more from this appealing guide to the world’s flora.
A collection of stories about the interconnections between humans and the plant world.
In his latest, plant neurobiologist Mancuso, author of The Incredible Journey of Plants and The Revolutionary Genius of Plants, continues his exploration of our relationships with plants. “After decades of keeping community with plants,” he writes, “I seem to perceive their presence not only in every place on our planet but also in the stories of each and every one of us.” As in his previous books, the author expertly combines his accessible style with pertinent scientific data. Following an encounter with an adversary in book collecting, Mancuso shares the story he learned regarding “liberty trees,” which were planted throughout France during the French Revolution, with inspiration from the American Revolution. Mancuso explains how planting trees in cities today can help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that the rural-urban reversal has produced and how red spruce became the wood of choice for violinmaker Antonio Stradivari. The author shares how studying the growth rings of trees in the American Southwest has allowed us to decipher climate trends of the past and to accurately date the Aztec ruins of New Mexico. Further, he explains how dendrochronology led to the unnecessary and unfortunate demise of Prometheus, the nearly 5,000-year-old pine tree considered the oldest living being on Earth. Mancuso also explains how a wooden ladder used in the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s baby led to the birth of forensic botany. In his quest for the origin of the idea that banana peels are slippery, Mancuso unearths the source of the 1967 hoax regarding the psychedelic effects of bananas. Finally, the author discusses the little-known planting of “moon trees” around the U.S. in 1976 to celebrate the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence.
An eclectic and fascinating collection that will leave readers wanting more from this appealing guide to the world’s flora.Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781635422566
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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