Stephen Daubert

This delightful book is rather like a rich dessert, best ingested in small portions so that one can fully enjoy each bite. The book consists of short stories, each describing a moment in an ecosystem. Lyrical, but without anthropomorphism or sentimentality, these stories are densely beautiful snapshots of the biological world. These would be excellent bedtime stories for scientists. I can think of little more pleasant than to be cozily tucked into bed with a warm voice reading one of these stories to me to inspire my dreams.

Worth owning.… (plus d'informations)

This book is a collection of brief natural history narratives. Each is a few pages long and describes a few plants or animals of a particular species in its context and its relationships with other species in its habitat.

There are a variety of types of habitat discussed: aquatic, forest, mountain, etc. as well as many biological themes such as migration, speciation, adaptation, extinction and mimicry.

I found the book a bit slow at first, but I found a key: in the chapter on neon flying squid, the verbal image of photoluminescent organisms rising to the surface at night seeming to mirror the stars is one that Coleridge could have used. If Ray Bradbury had known about squid shooting out of the water like rockets he would have mentioned it in his stories.

Each chapter ends with a brief discussion of how much of the narrative is based on actual observations and what parts are informed speculation. The speculations seem well-grounded; there are references to scientific papers and books in each chapter. Each also has a black and white illustration, photographically manipulated to emphasize one of the points in the chapter. The alterations of the photos or collages are easily spotted, so this is interpretation, not a means to mislead the reader.

The book is suitable for general readers and as supplementary reading for an AP biology course. For use as a textbook it might be best to redo the illustrations in color: several high school students I know refuse to watch black and white movies because they are 'not realistic'.… (plus d'informations)