The Wave

by Donna | Feb 15, 2011 | Environment, Nonfiction

Rating:  The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean, by Susan Casey. Doubleday (2010), 318 pages. Oh, Susan. I’m so embarrassed for you. Aren’t you embarrassed? Must all your books become a paean to your unbridled lust for one of the...

Listening to Whales

by Donna | Oct 7, 2009 | Environment, Nonfiction

Rating:  Listening to Whales: What the Orcas Have Taught Us, by Alexandra Morton. Ballantine Books (2002), 314 pages. Listening to Whales is part memoir and part nonfiction. It’s about whale and dolphin communication, the environment of coastal British...

Fruitless Fall

by Cindy | Sep 22, 2009 | Environment, Nonfiction

Rating:  Fruitless Fall:  The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis, by Rowan Jacobsen.  Bloomsbury (2008), 279 pages. Echoing Rachel Carson’s Silent Snow, Jacobsen’s Fruitless Fall informs us of the plight of honey bees...

The Golden Spruce

by Cindy | Sep 11, 2009 | Environment, Nonfiction

Rating:  The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed, by John Vaillant.  W.W. Norton (2005), 255 pages. The Golden Spruce is the story of the total destruction of the coastal old-growth forests in British Columbia. The flap copy of the book...

The End of the Line

by Donna | Sep 5, 2009 | Environment, Nonfiction

Rating:  The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat, by Charles Clover.  The New Press (2006), 384 pages. I tried so hard to like this book because the topic is unquestionably important and I wanted to learn whatever the...

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

by Cindy | Sep 4, 2009 | Environment, Nonfiction

Rating:  The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.  Penguin Press (2006), 450 pages. I was prepared to wade through a fair amount of dry technical talk on vegetable genetics and the like, in order to get to the good stuff in this book.  I’m...