Category: Back to Nature
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Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, by Richard Hinckley Allen
This book is exactly what the title promises. Exactly. I really enjoyed it, but not every aspiring astronomer would, for sure. Because the title is so accurate, the content is literally an investigation on every known culture’s connection with a given constellation, along with the key stars in the heavens. Various names, even within a…
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Long post: The Heartbeat of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben
If you enjoyed The Hidden Life of Trees, this is nothing like it. This book is almost a journal of a forester processing a philosophy of life with trees, but without any sort of philosophical framework to support the meanderings. If you enjoyed the conservationist agenda at the end of Hidden, you will love this. I, however,…
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Water, Ice, and Stone: Science and Memory on the Antarctic Lakes, by Bill Green
Who knew that there is an active volcano on Antarctica? What the heck is below all the snow and ice? I became just as curious about this mysterious, off-putting land as in the science that Green was after. His geochemistry was seeking answers to questions about chemical compositions of the Antarctic lakes—why cobalt, magnesium, and…
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Bird Sense: What It’s Like to Be a Bird, by Tim Birkhead
This one was a disappointment. Totally got taken in by the cover and the subtitle. Doesn’t a book about life like a bird sound fascinating? Well, this wasn’t it. In essence, this was a book setting out to prove that birds have the same five senses as humans, plus a magnetic sense for navigation, and,…
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The Secret World of Weather, by Tristan Gooley
I wish I would have read this before I read The Nature Instinct. The topic of this book was focused, crystallized around a few central principles that take various forms in various settings. I almost feel like I get it. I certainly get it more than I did. To truly get all of this, I feel…
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The Nature Instinct, by Tristan Gooley
Great tips for beginning to put pieces together in observing nature. The middle bogged down a bit, but the first half I found very doable and practical in terms of beginning to retrain ourselves to be perceptive and make connections automatically. Using the same technique that Malcolm Gladwell calls “thin-slicing,” Gooley walks through the process…