This book by Doris Kearns Goodwin weaves together three stories: A history of the turbulent 1960s, a biography of the author's husband speechwriter Dick Goodwin, and an autobiography of Doris Kearns Goodwin and her work with President Lyndon Johnson. I didn't realize quite how important a role Dick Goodwin played in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The book is history at its best. And its also a love story. Its the perfect book for Baby Boomers like me.
I've read many books by David Quammen, but somehow I had missed The Song of the Dodo until this year. Pity I didn't get to it sooner, because it's his best. It is nominally about island biogeography, but it covers so much more, like biodiversity and conservation. It's also an amazing travelogue, one of the best history of science books I have read, and wonderfully written. The Song of the Dodo is nonfiction at its best.
“Compulsively readable—a masterpiece, maybe the masterpiece of science journalism.” —Bill McKibben, Audubon
A brilliant, stirring work, breathtaking in its scope and far-reaching in its message, The Song of the Dodo is a crucial book in precarious times. Through personal observation, scientific theory, and history, David Quammen examines the mysteries of evolution and extinction and radically alters our understanding of the natural world and our place within it.
In this landmark of science writing, we learn how the isolation of islands makes them natural laboratories of evolutionary extravagance, as seen in the dragons of Komodo, the elephant birds of Madagascar, the…
As I write this review, hurricane Milton just crashed into Florida and the two presidential candidates are trying their best to avoid talking about climate change. But we cannot ignore it. Global warming and climate change are the defining issues of our generation. We really need books like How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, which provides a thoughtful, factual, understandable, and non-emotional analysis of the problems we face and the solutions we need. I was never a big Bill Gates fan, but he did humanity a service by writing this book. You should read this book. The climate crisis is real, urgent, and dire. We must avoid a climate disaster.
In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical - and accessible - plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions…
There has been much controversy about how electromagnetic fields affect our health. This book analyzes the evidence for and against such claims. It avoids jargon and mathematics. The target audience is journalists, politicians, teachers, students… and you.
Many topics are covered, such as the use of magnets to reduce pain, the possibility that powerline magnetic fields cause leukemia in children, the risk of 5G cell phone radiation leading to brain cancer, and the possibility that microwave weapons are responsible for the Havana syndrome. In each case, the conclusion is no, electromagnetic fields do not present a health risk.
The book also examines the evaluation of evidence, the function of clinical trials, and—most importantly—if we should trust science to answer these questions.
