Little Witch Hazel: A Year in the Forest

 Little Witch Hazel: A Year in the Forest by Phoebe Wahl, 96 colorful pages

As my kids are all adults, I am far away from the children's book world. I checked this out because of the author/illustrator Phoebe Wahl. I have been a fan of her art for a long time, but haven't actually read any of her books. This was an enjoyable read. Will the story appeal to the under 6 set? I am not sure, but I loved the drawings. The more you study them, the more you realize how intentionally inclusive and detailed they are. That is Wahl's strength. Her images capture a world that is comforting, gentle, and welcoming. We could all use a little more of that. 

The Light Eaters

 The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger, 304 pages.

Journalist Zoë Schlanger dives into the rapidly emerging, and highly controversial, field of plant intelligence. She focuses especially on plant communication and problem solving, both topics notable for how poorly they are understood, and for how quickly new information is being added. She also focuses on the scientists making these breakthroughs, the biologists who risk academic exile for researching things that seem to go against the way we understand plants. 

This was a fascinating book! Although it felt at times like it focused more on academic politics than I may have preferred, I still left with a plethora of astounding plant facts, in addition to a broader understanding of the field of research. This is definitely the kind of nature writing that leaves the reader with a lot of big questions to think on, which I always find impressive. I would recommend this book broadly to anyone with an interest in plants, but especially for fans of Ed Yong's An Immense World. 

Life Everlasting

Life Everlasting by Bernd Heinrich (2012) 236pp

Inspired by a dying friend who asks for advice on end-of-life alternatives, naturalist Heinrich describes the life-to-death cycle of nature in a folksy style and answers his friend's query. Supported by a meticulous life of observation of the natural world and using examples of dung beetles, sphinx moths, trees, ravens, etc. he demonstrates the interconnectedness of, well, everything. And by definition, the death of everything. But in his sprawling exercise he primarily emphasizes that the cyclical nature of nature. In addition to the mindful essays, the work is illustrated with the author's intricate line drawings. The final essay answers his friend's query on making informed choices at the end of our cycle.

Here

Here by Richard McGuire (2014) 304 pages

The new film Here by Robert Zemeckis starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright is based on this graphic novel. With such big stars the narrative thread must be more consistent and traditional, but I am still curious to see how it is adapted. This graphic novel is quite abstract with a "camera" view that does not move, but the time period depicted does jump wildly forward and backwards in time. It only gives you glimpses, often in small windows, into the broad stretch of time. We see ancient prehistory, history when no house is in the foreground, nearly the whole twentieth century history in the house that might be the main character, and speculation about our near future. There are some mini stories that are sequential over several pages: siblings sharing a joke, archeologists hoping to find relics on the property, Ben Franklin's family in a colonial house "across the street," a painter from the 1870s, and the building of the house in the foreground. After climate catastrophe, I especially loved the virtual tech imagined a couple centuries into our future. Following the time stamps is a nice mental puzzle, but I think the point is more to see the commonalities of how humans act and react to each other.
 

How to Do Nothing

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell, 232 pages

It's really hard to summarize this book, as the title is not really an accurate indication of the contents. I picked it up (well, checked out the downloadable audiobook anyway) in the hopes that Odell would offer some tips for, or at least a treatise on, avoiding the anxiety-inducing vacuum of social media. And I *think* that's what she set out to do. But the book didn't feel very cohesive, in that it meandered from her musings on noticing birds in her urban environment to David Hockney's photo collages to the earliest versions of social media (a couple of publicly accessible computers networked in the Bay Area) to the need to pay attention to inequalities and keep fighting the good fight. With a more accurate title and a more cohesive throughline, this could've been an enjoyable book. But as it was, it was just meh.

Enchantment

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May, 212 pages.

Jan wrote about this cozy nonfiction book here a couple of months ago. May writes about trying to recapture not just a sense of normalcy, but something better after the long stress period of a global pandemic. The book is mostly part memoir and part meditation on nature and life, one which encourages the reader to do the same kind of thinking.

I had a hard time getting into this book, but I'm pretty sure it is a perfectly fine book that would be very impactful if it spoke to you. I liked that the book was structured around the four classical elements, which felt like an effective organizational method. Overall, it wasn't for me, but I think it could be a very could choice for someone who enjoys an introspective memoir.
 

The feather thief

The feather thief: beauty, obsession, and the natural history heist of the century / Kirk Wallace Johnson, read by MacLeod Andrews, 308 pages

This is the kind of book you start and then maybe stop because you think...."what kind of kook thought up this plot?"  Then you look again and realize this is nonfiction.  Yes, this is all stuff that ACTUALLY happened.  After that, you can't really stop reading until you are done because it is all so odd.  Obsession is in the title but people who steal birds...dead of alive, to harvest their feathers to tie Victorian age flies, the kind you go fishing with, prove themselves obsessive in many different ways.  The main subject is Edwin Rist, a 21-year old flutist who steals a suitcase full of dead birds from a well respected natural history museum.  When the crime is solved, he gets off with no jail time despite the value of what he stole after being examined by the cousin of comedian Sasha Baron-Cohen, himself a clinical psychologist who thinks Edwin is autistic.  Who could make this up?  As I read, I kept thinking truth really is stranger than fiction.  Perfectly read by MacLeod Andrews. 

The Feather Thief

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson, 308 pages

In 2009, Edwin Rist, a 21-year-old flautist, broke into an ornithological museum in the U.K. and stole almost 300 rare bird specimens. Did he do it for the challenge? To sell to taxidermists and milliners? Nope. He stole them to tie flies and sell to other fly-tiers. Yes, like the ones used for fly fishing, but WAY fancier. Johnson's book delves into all aspects of this crime, including the history of the museum and the birds that were pilfered, the squishy ethics of the elite fly-tying world, the opaque psyche of Rist, and the post-heist hunt for the birds. Through it all, Johnson weaves the seemingly disparate subjects of crime, natural history, fashion, fishing, and classical music performance into a tight, well-told story.

Woolly

Woolly: the true story of the quest to revive one of history's most iconic extinct creatures / Ben Mezrich, 293 pgs.

I was fascinated by this book, telling of the team of young scientist who are trying to genetically engineer the return of the Woolly Mammoth.  We learn about several different areas of research, not the least is a discovery about climate change and how to correct some of the problems humans have created.  Fear not, there are a lot of ethical issues involved in this type of science and the book covers the topic. And YES, they all have seen/read Jurassic Park.  My only complaint would be that some areas could have used a harder look.

Uprooted

Uprooted by Naomi Novik, 438 pages

Every ten years, a powerful, mysterious wizard known only as the Dragon chooses a 17-year-old girl from one of the villages surrounding his tower, forcing them to stay with him for a decade. Agnieszka (and everyone else in their village) fully expects her friend Kasia to be chosen, but the Dragon instead chooses Agnieszka, for reasons that are unknown to everyone, including the Dragon. However, it soon becomes apparent that Agnieszka has been blessed with magic herself, and soon she and the Dragon are pulled into an age-old battle against the malevolent Wood that threatens to destroy first the valley where they live, and then the entire realm.

This book won the 2016 Nebula award for best novel, and it's well-deserved. Novik has created a fairy tale-esque story with excellent characters, a quick plot, and an intriguing conflict that makes us ponder motivations and consequences of emotions and actions alike.