|
|
|
|
|
|
Cabin: Off-the-Grid Adventures With a Clueless Craftsman
by Patrick Hutchison
Patrick Hutchison is transitioning from an office job to restoring a 120-square-foot off-the-grid cabin in the Pacific Northwest. Initially lacking carpentry experience, he slowly builds his skill level through seven years of renovations. Cabin blends a story of transformation with themes of love, possibility, and learning—perfect for anyone taking on more than they believe they can handle.
|
|
|
|
What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures
by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
What If We Get It Right? explores potential climate futures, encouraging readers to envision a transformed world. Through essays and conversations enriched with data, poetry, and art, Johnson presents solutions at the intersection of science, policy, culture, and justice. Featuring visionary figures and a dash of humor, this text will be helpful to anyone looking to find their role in creating a flourishing future, and inspire those struggling to picture a sustainable world.
|
|
|
|
Is a River Alive?
by Robert Macfarlane
The best-selling author of Underland explores the concept of rivers as living entities, weaving together travel writing, natural history and reporting from Ecuador, India and Canada to illuminate the interconnectedness of humans and rivers.
|
|
| The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street by Mike TidwellTravel writer Mike Tidwell examines the impacts of climate change in his own Maryland suburb. Telling the story through interactions with his neighbors, all of whom had a stake in the die-off of their street’s stately old oaks, Tidwell inspires while sharing various neighborhood responses to problems both local and global. Other accessible reads about climate threats and activism include Adventures in the Anthropocene by Gaia Vince and California Against the Sea by Rosanna Xia. |
|
| The Ocean's Menagerie: How Earth's Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life by Drew HarvellMarine biologist Drew Harvell amazes with a rich and descriptive catalog of ocean invertebrates, a group that outnumbers backboned species 30 to one and includes octopuses, jellies, crustaceans, and sea stars. Harvell details these creatures' superpowers, hardly an exaggeration given their potential benefits to the environment and human life. Those curious about exotic marine life should also check out The World Beneath by Richard Smith. |
|
|
|
Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication
by Arik Kershenbaum
University of Cambridge zoologist Arik Kershenbaum has been in the field of animal communication for decades. His study of the speech-like sounds and songs emitted by creatures including wolves, parrots, dolphins, and chimpanzees runs afoul of the idea that humans are Earth’s sole language users, and posits that “animals have much to say to each other -- but also to us” (Kirkus Reviews).
|
|
|
|
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want
by Emily M. Bender
In their new exploration of the future of artificial intelligence, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna argue against the notion that AI will take over the world or replace human creativity. They describe this belief as "AI hype," a tactic that benefits the wealthy by justifying data theft and promoting surveillance capitalism. Throughout their various criticisms of AI hype, they also spend time teaching readers to recognize and challenge it in different contexts—and revealing the hype as a smoke screen for how Big Tech's profit motives disregard their negative impacts on society.
|
|
| The Age of Diagnosis: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker by Suzanne O'SullivanAccording to neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, a combination of expanding disease definitions and advances in medical screening is causing diagnoses to increase drastically, which taxes healthcare systems, feeds health anxiety in patients, and gives rise to the “nocebo effect,” where giving a patient a disease label can actually produce symptoms. Readers looking for other interesting books about physician-patient communication should try How Medicine Works and When It Doesn’t by F. Perry Wilson. |
|
| Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer's Families and the Search for a Cure by Jennie Erin SmithWhile researchers had long been aware of the alarmingly high rates of early-onset Alzheimer’s in one remote region of Colombia, the discovery that many of the patients were related sparked the search for a genetic cause. Journalist Jennie Erin Smith tells the moving story of how an inherited gene was eventually isolated, igniting hope for a cure. For other emotional narratives about genetics and disease, try My Father’s Brain by Sandeep Jauhar or A Fatal Inheritance by Lawrence Ingrassia. |
|
|
|
Our next discussion:
Thursday, July 17, 6:30 pm
Library Conference Room on Lower Level
If you're a regular reader of non-fiction about nature and science, consider joining our Eco-centric Book Club! The club usually meets on the third Thursday of the month at 6:30, but we do recommend confirming details on our events calendar in case of changes. Copies of our next book will be on reserve at the Circulation Desk. We hope to see you there!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|