5 Stars. I'm a geek about a lot of things but I had kind of forgotten that I can geek out over maps. Back in the days before I could endlessly scroll through social media as someone else drove on a road trip, I could entertain myself for hours with an atlas. (The concentration required for reading in the car started leaving me [...]
3.5 Stars. I have to admit that I’m one of those who have never heard of Humboldt; or, if he was ever mentioned in my classes, I’ve completely forgotten him. And that’s a shame because the man was so right about so very many things. He was brilliant and brought together many scientific disciplines in his theories in a time when scientists [...]
5 Stars. What a lovely book! It’s a realistic story but the illustrator captured the girl’s excitement in touches of whimsy throughout. The soft focus of the artwork gives the book the feel of a dream, even while the girl/woman is working hard to do real things. One spread near the end gives me goosebumps. I especially love [...]
4.5 Stars. If you look at all six of the genres I've placed this book in, you can tell that it defies description. The title sounds boring to me. I had to take a plant taxonomy class in college. While I enjoyed learning the names of things, I didn't like learning about the plants themselves. Photosynthesis, xylem and phloem, or [...]
4 Stars. I downloaded this book on a whim from the library, thinking that it would work for the 2021 Nonfiction Reader Challenge "hobby" category since I can't resist picking up seashells when I'm at the beach. As I read, I decided it would work better for the "oceanography" category but either way, I found the book captivating [....]
4 Stars. What an inspirational story! William and his family have almost nothing by Western standards but they do have each other and William has dreams and the willingness to teach himself and try. That takes him farther than he could even dream of. The part describing the famine was extremely difficult to read. People starve [...]
When I first finished this book back in January, I rated it 3 stars. I roughly translate that to "good enough but forgettable." Yet here I am in April, going for walks on the beach every morning, mesh bag over my shoulder, picking up every tiny piece of litter I see along the water line. I don't want whales to accidentally eat [...]
4 Stars. I'm not quite sure what I expected when I downloaded this book from the library but it's not exactly what I got. Not that I'm complaining; this book is absorbing. My review keeps turning into a book report because I want to discuss so many of the ideas I just read! I knew this was nonfiction about the worlds of [...]
5 Stars. This book fascinated me from the moment I started reading. I made heavy use of the highlight function on my Kindle, highlighting 53 passages. 53! I would like to share them all here but I believe that would get me in trouble for copyright infringement. This book about plagues was somehow hilarious! I’ve worked healthcare for [...]
Mary Roach has a gift for making science accessible and--dare I say it?--even funny. In this book, she tackles the digestive system. Covering topics ranging from thorough chewing (as in 700+ chews for One. Freaking. Bite.) to the miraculous properties of spit, from being eaten alive to the possibility (or not) of chewing your way out if you are, from "The alimentary canal as criminal accomplice" to *ahem* flatus, and ending up with bacterial transplants to treat intractable digestive ailments, this book asks everything you might possibly have ever wanted to know on the topic but were afraid to ask. I have a pretty juvenile sense of humor, so all of the fart jokes, and spit jokes, and *ahem* "criminal accomplice" jokes had me at least giggling. In the two chapters devoted to flatulence, I was quite honestly laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. Not that it was necessarily that funny but because "Oh my gosh, I can't believe she went there. And there. And there!" I'm almost ashamed of myself. Almost. Luckily my husband and I have the same sense of humor so he just kept playing whatever game on his phone as I laughed myself silly and waited for me to catch my breath and report so he could share in the joke too. I've worked in healthcare for years, so I've developed a pretty strong stomach (though I'm not a nurse or CNA and haven't ever had to wade into the trenches, so to speak), so nothing in here bothered me. That will obviously not be the case for all of you. If you can stomach it (heehee!), I do recommend this. If it doesn't seem to be your kind of thing, it's probably not. Read an excerpt. Find author Mary Roach on her website and Twitter.…