Tag Archives: natural history

Aerial Geology

Posted on June 26, 2020 by smellincoffee

Aerial Geology: A High Altitude Tour of North America’s Spectacular Volcanoes, Canyons, Glaciers, Lakes, Craters, and Peaks © 2017 Mary Caperton Morton 308 pages   It was love at first sight, me and this book. There  I was, cruising BooksAMillion … Continue reading →

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Dinosaurs, India, and the smartphone

Posted on May 31, 2019 by smellincoffee

We in the United States  recently enjoyed a three-day weekend, ostensibly for the purpose of honoring fallen soldiers, though I suspect for most it’s just an occasion to shop and cook out before the summer heat becomes unbearable.  I took … Continue reading →

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The Ends of the World

Posted on July 25, 2018 by smellincoffee

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions© 2017 Peter Brannen336 pages Earth has tried to kill us five times before, and now it’s at it again. (To be fair, … Continue reading →

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In the Land of the Tiger

Posted on January 15, 2017 by smellincoffee

In the Land of the Tiger: A Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent© 1997 Valmik Thapar285 pages Imagine a Planet Earth episode focused entirely on India, and then presented in book form. The result is In the Land of the … Continue reading →

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Week of Enchantment: Epic? Nay, MAMMOTH!

Posted on October 18, 2016 by smellincoffee

The natural history museum in downtown Albuquerque is monstrously big, and after arriving at its service doors I made my way around the campus (“building” does not suffice), admiring the way the landscape was sculpted and filled with plants to … Continue reading →

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This week at the library: the cosmos, Jane Austen, zombies, and the Middle Way

Posted on May 9, 2013 by smellincoffee

— Minireviews —  Some zombies like to lurch about groaning for brains. Some zombies like to ride the escalators, listen to Frank Sinatra, and daydream about their past life. That’s R,  a zombie who has forgotten most of his life, … Continue reading →

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The Humans Who Went Extinct

Posted on December 21, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals Died Out and We Survived© 2010 Clive Finlayson256 pages Whatever happened to the Neanderthals? Did Homo sapiens drive our beefy cousins into extinction in the first of many exercises in genocide as we … Continue reading →

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The Ghosts of Evolution

Posted on July 31, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsense Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms© 2000 Connie Barlow291 pages Grocery stores are excellent places to encounter ghosts. They lurk in the fruit section, feasting on anachronisms. The biological world is a wondrous web … Continue reading →

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Catching Fire

Posted on May 9, 2012 by smellincoffee

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human © 2009 Richard Wrangham309 pages Cooking has created a great many fantastic dish throughout the centuries, but Richard Wrangham holds that the culinary art’s greatest triumph is us — humanity, for the advent of … Continue reading →

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The Oceans

Posted on January 21, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Oceans© 2000 Ellen J. Prager with Sylvia A. Earle314 pages Seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, constituting a vast and largely unknown world of its own — vitally important to ours, but scarcely explored and … Continue reading →

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