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 […]
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 Continue Reading…
Author Meera Lee Sethi travels to Sweden one summer to volunteer at a bird observatory. Her time in the mists and mountains of Sweden led her to write a collection of contemplative essays that are collected here. What beautiful language! I was in deep like from the beginning and in love by the closing sentences Continue Reading…
I find it hard to describe this book without making it sound dull and boring. I’ve tried to tell my husband and he just looks at me blankly. “It’s about trees?” “Well, yes, but it’s interesting and it’s about…trees.” Sometime in the late ’80’s, a few people who didn’t even know each other decided to Continue Reading…
HeLa cells (named after the woman they came from, Henrietta Lacks) have been used for about 60 years by scientists all over the world for all kinds of cellular research. Yet very few scientists could tell you the real name of the woman the cells came from, much less anything about her. Yet somehow, Rebecca Continue Reading…
Chalk this up to a win for the GoodReads friends. I would never have picked this up on my own. A book about cadavers? How morbid can you be? Not to mention the heebie-jeebies that would be sure to haunt me throughout the book. But so many people have read this and raved about it Continue Reading…
We take so much in our daily lives for granted. Bill Bryson looked around his house one day, realized how little he knew about the everyday objects surrounding him, and, being Bill Bryson, decided to research and write a book about them. I read this slowly as my before-bed book, and I’m not sure that Continue Reading…
Bill Bryson is back and this time’s he’s tackling the question of “Where do we come from?” in a very accessible kind of way. He gives an everyman’s scientific explanation of the creation of the universe, the world, the atmosphere, evolution, human evolution, you name it. Pretty much all the sciences are covered, from astronomy Continue Reading…