Book Review: "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I heard about this book through some independent booksellers on the PBS Newshour. While it isn't brand new, it is vital reading if you want to make a positive difference in the world.

Braiding Sweetgrass; Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Milkweed Editions 2013

Imagine how different the daily operations of our federal government might be if each convening of the U.S. Congress began with our elected officials first agreeing that all people and all living things had the right to clean air, clean water, and a sustainable life. How could they build solutions, if they agreed that the water had an obligation to be clean and to flow naturally so that it could play the roll it was meant to play for the planet and for the living beings. How different would we look at our planet if we saw ourselves as part of its natural processes and not separate from them?

Robin Wall Kimmerer is that rare human who lives both in the world of modern science and indigenous culture. Can the two intertwine and compliment one another? Kimmerer reveals her own path to combining new knowledge with ancient wisdom. She provides insight from ancient language that can name challenges our English language has no words for. 

There is no lecturing here, but there are challenges to a Western European mindset of conquer and subjugate. The Earth gives all that it can to us, what do we give back?

hummingbird nest in native Catalina cherry

 

This book has won a spot on my nightstand. I know that I will go back to it time and again, finding greater depth in my understanding and discovering new layers in its wisdom. For now, I have put my hands back into the earth to grow some of my own food. I renew my efforts to bring native plants into my yard to feed and shelter the flying families and "four-legged peoples." I will tend my "standing people" because the trees provide shade from the summer heat and clean the air for us all. 

Channel Island fox

 

"Reciprocal" is the word you will walk away with. In Kimmerer's stories I found insights into my own relationship with island fox conservation and the human relationship with island foxes.

What will you find in these pages to enlighten your own journey? 

 

 

 

 

Other Book Reviews:

"The Big Ones" by Lucy Jones

"Life in a Shell" by Donald C. Jackson

"Feathers; The Evolution of a Miracle" by Thor Hansen

"The Geese of Beaver Bog" by Bernard Heinrich

    

Book Review: "The Big Ones" by Lucy Jones

Could there be a more timely book?

The Big Ones; How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Humanity (and what we can do about them) 
by Lucy Jones
Penguin Random House 2018

If you are paying attention in Southern California, you are familiar with both "The Big One" and Lucy Jones. Jones is the voice we hear following any large earthquake in Southern California. She is the former U.S. Geological Survey seismologist that can explain the complexities of an earthquake in a simple, but relevant manner to any audience. When we hear her voice, smart Californians, quiet their fears and listen.

Imagine my surprise when I came across Jones' book in a small book store in London. Despite luggage weight limits, I snatched it up and began reading.

In California, "The Big One" refers to the next expected massive earthquake on the San Andres Fault that jogs up through most of the state. When it hits, will we be ready for the shake and the aftermath? We will try to be ready, just like the people in Florida and the Bahamas attempted to be ready for hurricane Dorian. With Jones' help, Los Angeles has seriously considered how our response will play out.

What Jones adds to this discussion is historical perspective. There have been other Big Ones around the world–big earthquakes, big storms, big volcanic eruptions, even big floods that Californians have forgotten about. It behooves us to look back to these other events so we can understand how a city or community survives and successfully rebuilds. One of the necessary factors: people, public-minded people willing to make a positive difference.

There are some simple, but vitally important lessons detailed in this book. No matter the threat we must curtail corruption, put aside politics, and prepare intelligently. When catastrophe strikes, successful survival comes from making informed decisions, helping those that can be helped quickly, then recruiting those survivors to be part of the long-term solution for those who have suffered the most.

Worried about earthquakes? Read this book. You will have a better understanding of the real threat. Concerned about climate change impacts that will challenge what we know about storm response? Read this book. Looking for real world ways to approach problems? Read this book. Learn from those who succeeded and those who did not. Whatever "The Big One" is in your life. This book will give you insight and be a good read.

Other Good Books:
Survival of the Sickest

"The California Wildlife Habitat Garden"

Book Review of

The California Wildlife Habitat Garden; How to attract bees, butterflies, birds and other animals by Nancy Bauer 

2012. University of California Press: Berkeley, CA.

CA native plants in our front garden

We all know it: habitat loss is a major cause of plant and animal diversity decline. Typically, the first examples that come to mind are exotic animals like Asian elephants pushed into diminishing forests by growing human populations in India or China. Some people might think of charismatic golden-lion tamarins, small primates, struggling to share coastal forests with the sprawl of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. But few people, especially those living in California, realize our urban growth is creating similar habitat destruction and decline in our unique California biodiversity.

Nancy Bauer’s book places a well-needed spotlight on creating wildlife habitat specifically in California yards. In five chapters highlighting specific kinds of habitat, she lays out easy to emulate ideas. Each habitat type, whether bird habitat or wildlife pond, includes beautiful photos and a “Garden Profile” of a real garden transformed into a living landscape. 

Western swallowtail butterfly on native hollyleaf cherry

If a pollinator garden peaks your interest, succinct appendices provide focused information like “Common California Butterflies and Host Plants” or “Top Nectar and Pollen Plant Families.” The watering and mulching information for “Oaks in the Landscape” provided tips that I hope will help our young oak trees be more healthy in the future.

Whether you are up for a dramatic change or willing to gradually create more natural plantings, Bauer’s book is a well-written and valuable resource. For ten years we’ve been gradually replacing exotic ornamental plants in our garden with California natives. Our water use has dropped and the biodiversity in our yard has tripled. With the native plants have come native insects, followed by the birds and reptiles that prey on those insects. If you create an island of habitat, wild creatures will find your oasis. You’ll not only have the pleasure of experiencing the butterflies and birds, but you will know you are providing them food and shelter vital for their survival.  

Habitat comes in all sizes; Even a few will-chosen host plants on a terrace can create habitat. A couple of “Seasonal Plants for Hummingbirds” will transform a sterile patio. Creating habitat is like drops of water collecting to become a stream. Your small habitat connects with a neighbor’s and gradually we create corridors for wildlife. Be inspired by Bauer’s book to make a positive difference. What species will you help save with your wildlife habitat garden?

Other Book Reviews:
"Life in a Shell"
"Feathers; The Evolution of a Natural Miracle"
"Alex and Me"
"The Geese of Beaver Bog"
"Survival of the Sickest"
 

"Life in a Shell"

Book Review

Life in a Shell; a physiologist’s view of a turtle

Donald C. Jackson, 2011 Harvard University Press; Cambridge, MA

protected California desert tortoise

OK, I love turtles. 

Let me just put that right up front. That said, Professor Donald C. Jackson’s Life in a Shell is a book destine to become prominent in my library. Between these pages, science, discovery and wonder all come together. Professor Jackson invites you into his laboratory and the scientific process, while always keeping you in awe of his subject–turtles.

Jackson spent the majority of his career at Brown University as a Professor of Medical Science, where he researched how some freshwater turtles survive for extended amounts of time without oxygen. One of the greatest charms of this book is that it offers insight from the scientist himself and is clearly referenced when referring to the scientific work of others.  With ease and anecdotal accounts, Jackson weaves his studies together with the work of other researchers and students to clearly explain the respiratory wonders of turtles.

• How do turtles breath when they are the only vertebrates with a ribcage that can’t expand? Remember their ribs form part of the shell.
• How can painted turtles hibernate in the bottom of iced-over ponds without access to the surface to breath? This isn’t holding your breath for a few hours, it is finding a way to slow down your metabolism, alter your body chemistry and acquire available oxygen in the water so you can survive for months.
• And then there is the ultimate turtle survival skill, maintaining life without oxygen at all. 

If you think of turtles as slow and irrelevant, think again. If you regard the 3-chambered heart of a turtle as less capable than a racing 4-chambered human heart, you’ll be stunned. A turtle heart can beat 100 times a minute in a warm, exercising animal or slow to once every ten minutes in a cold individual surviving without oxygen. Our own hearts struggle to fluctuate four times their resting beat and fail quickly without access to oxygen. If you don’t think understanding the complexity of a creature that can manipulate its metabolism is important, then you’ve never consider human space travel or the numbers of trauma patients that could be saved if their bodies could be slowed down in the face of severe injury to keep them alive until they arrived at a medical facility.

Turtles are a wonder; ancient survivors that now face serious challenges because of human mistreatment, unsustainable harvesting and habitat loss. Life in a Shell will give you renewed respect for the unique creatures that are turtles.

Other Book Reviews

Feathers; The Evolution of a Miracle
Alex and Me
The Geese of Beaver Bog

"Feathers; The Evolution of a Natural Miracle"

Book Review
Feathers; The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson Basic Books, Philadelphia PA. 2011

Discovery, questions and the search for possible explanations, such is the joyous nature of science. Thor Hanson immediately engages the reader as a friend and invites you to share his journey of discovery about feathers. His comfortable voice weaving scientific accuracy and engaging story reminded me of another of my favorite science writers Bernd Heinrich (The Geese of Beaver Bog). When Hanson began to mention a professor with a cabin in the Maine woods, I knew it was no coincidence. Thor Hanson studied under Heinrich and carries on with his professor’s insightful way of making science accessible to a broad audience.

From dinosaur fossils haloed with imprints of their feathers to specially dyed and designed feather costumes worn onstage in Las Vegas, Hanson explores the origins, function, miraculous qualities, beauty and yet undiscovered abilities of fluff and quill. Did you know that the reason Dickens's Tiny Tim was anticipating a holiday goose dinner was because the number of geese needed to furnish the feathers for quill pens meant that there were a lot of geese available at the butcher shop? With the replacement of the quill pen, geese gradually moved off our menu.

Feathers have driven people to do amazing things. They encouraged us to take to the air ourselves and public outrage at the excessive consumption of birdlife to decorate women’s hats with feathers led to the first conservation movement in the United States. The Audubon Society and the Migratory Bird Act are all interconnected with feathers.

If you love birds, have ever worn a feather in your hat band or wonder how human use of resources can impact the world, pick up a copy of Feathers. Hanson will reveal truths about these downy delicacies that you have never dreamed of and will inspire you to ask more questions yourself. This is one of my favorite books of the year.

Other Book Reviews:
Alex and Me
The Geese of Beaver Bog
Survival of the Sickest

"Alex and Me" by Irene M. Pepperberg

Alex and Me; How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence–and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

Irene M. Pepperberg. (2008). HarperCollins Publishers. NY

Did you know Alex? If you saw this intelligent African gray parrot on television or read about Irene Pepperberg’s avian cognition studies with this amazing bird, you may have felt that you did know Alex. I know I did. Apparently thousands of other people did as well because Pepperberg’s book opens with the outpouring of affection and communal loss expressed when Alex died suddenly in 2007.

If you didn’t know Alex, the combined personal emotion plus the attention from international media upon his death creates a basis for you to understand the importance of this bird; not everyone has their obituary published on the front page of the Economist.

When you sit down with Alex & Me, it is as though you are sitting down with a friend telling you about her work with an insightful colleague. Pepperberg takes you through the origin of her interest in avian intelligence and weaves her scientific findings with Alex into the story. While I occasionally wanted more specifics about the science, the story format allows Pepperberg to include examples of Alex’s understanding and intelligence that occurred outside of structured research.

One thing is certain, if you think “bird brain” means dumb or unable to use higher cognitive powers Alex and his avian colleagues will challenge your assumption. Humans frequently hold up the size of our brains as proof of our intelligence, but not all brains function in the same manner and the researchers are always a step behind with structuring studies to delve the capabilities of Alex and his “walnut-sized brain.”

What made Alex so unique was his ability to vocalize his thoughts and understanding in a way that humans could comprehend. When the hermit thrush and the ruby-crowned kinglet reappear each October in my small yard in Woodland Hills, I am always struck by the fact that they have found their way back. Do I know these are the same individual birds? Yes, because both of them announce themselves to me specifically upon their return. This year the kinglet came right up and nearly perched on my hand. Where did they spend the spring and summer? What did they see and experience on the trip? How did they navigate their way back?

Unfortunately these birds can not speak in a language I can understand. But there is intelligence here that goes unexplored. Alex was not bred to be an avian genius, he was just taught to speak clearly so that humans could have insight into his avian intelligence. Alex & Me will make you laugh and cry, it also will challenge you to appreciate the intelligence of non-human animals.



Other Book Reviews:
The Geese of Beaver Bog
Survival of the Sickest

"The Geese of Beaver Bog" by Bernd Heinrich

Book Review:

The Geese of Beaver Bog

by Bernd Heinrich
HarperCollins, New York, NY 2004


Looking for a summer read that has intertwining romances, intrigue and an uplifting ending? Then get your hands on Bernd Heinrich’s “The Geese of Beaver Bog.”


Heinrich is one of my favorite authors. He combines the scientific insight of a biology professor, the lyric wordsmithing of a poet and the curiosity of child with the artful unraveling of complex concepts that is the gift of a true teacher.

In addition, Heinrich’s books stand out for me because of his passion for fieldwork. He wades through the muck to get close to the nesting geese. He clutches a cup of hot coffee while observing on a frosty morning. He is the one who is struck by a defensive gander while patiently trying to establish a relationship with several pairs of wild Canada geese.

Less scientific than previous works, like Winter World, The Geese of Beaver Bog is Heinrich’s very personal saga of a Canada goose named “Peep.” This female Canada goose was raised by Heinrich and his family and then returned to the wild.

Could a gosling imprinted on humans lead a normal life in the wild? Would it remember its human family years later? Heinrich chronicles his life with Peep and in the process reveals some myths about Canada geese. Do they mate for life? Do they build their nests in communal groups? Do male geese dominate their female partners?

You will count the days along with Heinrich waiting for the eggs to hatch and hurry through the pages to find the geese when they disappear. You’ll hang on the successes and failures, and try to listen in as the parents communicate with the hatchlings still inside their eggs.

If you are interested in the natural world and understanding creatures different from yourself, spend some quality reading time with Bernd Heinrich and discover the complex and fascinating world of Beaver Bog. You’ll never look at a Canada goose the same way again.

“Survival of the Sickest” by Dr. Sharon Moalem

Book Review -

“Survival of the Sickest”
by Dr. Sharon Moalem

HarperCollins Publishers, New York NY 2007


Evolution is a long process played out over multiple generations. Not necessarily.

Dr. Moalem’s book “Survival of the Sickest” touches on a number of evolutionary adaptations in humans which allowed populations to survive catastrophic disease. But there is a price to pay for this protection–in the absence of these environmental challenges or malevolent diseases such adaptations can result in chronic health conditions.

Do you believe that as a human you are on an elevated position on the evolutionary web of life? Then pay attention the next time you sneeze. Are you sneezing by choice or is a microbe manipulating your behavior for its own purposes?

Moalem also challenges common thinking about how animal populations adapt to survive by discussing the field of epigenetics. Scientific evidence is building to show that dramatic physical variances can occur from one generation to the next by means of genes that are turned on and off. Behavior of the parent, before and during fetal development and at certain specific windows after birth, can actually change which genes are activated. Such changes can then be passed on to later generations.

Moalem’s “Survival of the Sickest” is thought provoking science presented for a lay audience. He explains complicated ideas clearly and challenges you to think outside the box. For me, I was making connections to how individuals from a single finch species on the Galapagos Islands can have completely different beak structure from one generation to the next in response to environmental changes in food supply. Biologists are trying to understand how a specific Asian wolf population made the leap from wolf to dog. Perhaps epigenetics played a role.

There is growing evidence that major evolutionary changes happen in bursts. Epigenetics seems to support these theories. If so, global warming may be a catalyst for dramatic change in the natural world as species must adapt quickly or perish. If indeed evolution can happen over the course of just a few generations, the changes that occur my shock us all.