Disruptions : stories Steven Millhauser 12/15/2023 This collection was my first book by Millhauser and I liked it a lot. He has a unique viewpoint, mostly 1st person narrative and the scenarios he creates are quite bizarre. The story “After the beheading” is, as many of his stories are, set in a community. This one … [Read more…]
Worlds of exile and illusion by Ursula K. Le Guin From the publisher, ” The author’s first three novels–City of Illusions, Rocannon’s World, and Planet of Exile–are included in an omnibus edition, all set in the same universe as The Left Hand of Darkness, as her characters battle forces in society that seek to tear … [Read more…]
Non-fiction Finished the 524 pages of “The Dawn of Everything, A New History Of Humanity” by Davids Graeber and Wengrow. A challenging book, well written and somewhat academic in tone, both authors are professors at their respective British schools, Graeber of economics and Wengrow of comparative archeology. The authors propose that there were actually few … [Read more…]
We visited the Petrified Forest near Calistoga CA last week. In the walk through the forest was a plaque explaining the link between “Petrified Charley,” the founder and owner of the site in 1880, and Robert Lewis Stevenson who visited. At the gift shop was a slim volume “The Silverado Squatters” by RLS which my … [Read more…]
Tretheway, like Elizabeth Rush, is a very good nature writer. I had some experience working on mapping vessels back in my youth and it was very interesting to “go back out” albeit in my arm chair with much newer vessels and equipment. She builds up the background of ocean mapping, how little we really know, … [Read more…]
October 23, 2023 I just read Elizabeth Rush’s new book “The Quickening” in which she reports on a research cruise to Thwaites Glacier in 2018/19. Seems the first time the thinning sea ice would let ships get anywhere close was in 2017-2020 so there was some very good data gathered in those years. We are … [Read more…]
Nov 22, 2023 Just finished “The Blue Machine – How the Ocean Works” by Helen Czerski. As you can guess, it is a non-fiction title, another scientist commenting on a topic dear to her and meaningful for most of us, a genre I’m finding attractive in my old age She’s a physicist whose work on … [Read more…]
Comment on the genre of “climate fiction,” which now, in late 2023 is pretty well defined, this entry suggests it has been around for centuries but gained momentum around 2010. Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction) The Wikipedia entry for Climate Fiction contains this: “Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works … [Read more…]
Thousands of salmon escaped an Icelandic fish farm The Guardian, Sept 30, 2023.
Antarctica’s heatwaves are a warning to humanity – and we have only a narrow window to save the planet Climate scientists The Guardian Opinion Antarctica Fri 4 Aug 2023 Antarctica’s sea ice levels are plummeting as extreme weather events happen faster than scientists predicted