Reviews #416 #417 #418 #419 posted in January 2023

February 10, 2023 9:32 AM

The Inquisitive Biologist has reviewed over 400 fascinating science books. Recommendations in 2022 include A Natural History of the Future (by Rob Dunn) and The Sloth Lemur’s Song: Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Present (by Alison Richard).

Research by Rob Dunn's lab previously on MeFi.

posted by spamandkimchi (5 comments total)

Reading the review on Volt Rush:The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green (can I assign this book to policymakers, especially California ones who are all-in on electric vehicles?):

Throughout the book, Sanderson hits what I think are several relevant notes that reveal the deeper roots of the problems associated with the new mining rush (your reviewer writes as he reaches for his soapbox). He points out how increased efficiency is frequently negated by increased consumption (Jevons Paradox) and the evil of planned obsolescence that further undermines any attempt at careful use of Earth’s resources. He quotes former DEFRA chief scientist Ian Boyd that “emissions are a symptom of rampant resource consumption” (p. 212) and points out that in the next 25 years we will consume more copper than we did in the previous 5000 years “as the population increases and gets richer” (p. 174).

...

Despite lithium expert Alex Grant’s comment that we have created “a game of ‘carbon whack-a-mole’ where we eliminate the CO2 emission from burning petrol, but substitute them for emissions elsewhere” (p. 66). Despite the revealing public admission by Glencore’s Ivan Glasenberg “that he didn’t believe that the world could produce enough cobalt to satisfy long-term electric car demand” (p. 112). Even when the answer stares Sanderson in the face as he writes that “growth based on extraction cannot be infinite” (p. 246) and quotes from Vaclav Smil’s book Growth, his solution is conscious consumerism. Wait, after you just wrote a book exposing how enormous the resource requirements are, and how broken and destructive the supply chain is?

posted by spamandkimchi at 10:09 AM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is great.

I appreciate his assessments, and his quiet enthusiasm for the books he likes, like Dinosaurs – 10 Things You Should Know: 230 Million Years for People Short on Time:

It takes great skill to capture the essence of a subject into a short book, steer clear of well-trodden ground, and contribute something novel that will educate and enthuse your reader. Palaeontologist and science communicator Dean Lomax here collects ten short essays on dinosaurs, convincingly showing that good things come in small packages.

...

Another strong suit of this book is that it shows that you can be both brief and accurate in popular science. When introducing Darwin’s theory of natural selection he avoids that old chestnut of “survival of the fittest” and correctly characterises it as a stochastic process where “those animals with features better adapted to their environment have a higher chance of surviving and reproducing” (p. 98).

And I especially like the inclusion of the page numbers (can't remember the last time I saw that in a review), and the related books linked at the ends of the reviews.

(Oddly, my Firefox plugins seem to dislike the site's widgets: the images are missing for me in the Other recommended books mentioned in this review section and the Currently reading section.)

This looks like a wonderful (and definitely impressive) archive, and I'm looking forward to digging in a lot more - and hopefully finding some of the books he's reviewed.

Thank you so much for posting this, spamandkimchi!
posted by kristi at 10:53 AM on February 10, 2023

Oh, this is good stuff! I immediately went to his review of The Tangled Tree which I really enjoyed reading last year, and was happy to see such a thoughtful essay!
posted by mittens at 11:09 AM on February 10, 2023

Berluddy 'ell, that Leon sure reads a lot of science books. Over an equivalent period, since I gave up the day job, I've read and reviewed a tenth as many mostly science books. Only about a tenth of those [Frayed Atlantic Edge, Underland, Traces, Entangled life] intersect with Leon's list. For me, a good book review
a) tells you what goes down
b) intimates whether you'll likely enjoy reading it and
c) adds something else to the mix that makes the review itself a thing of interest and standing.

Obvs, I haven't read all or even most of these book reviews but it looks like a richer seam to mine for science-related reading matter than all the newspapers in the English speaking world put together. So hats off for that, and thanks to spamandkimchi for waving the list at us/ me.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:08 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Amazing, thank you so much... I listen to books like this multiple times daily, doing housework, exercising, commuting.

The smattering of what he's reviewed that I know already is almost all books I've enjoyed, so between the related books links and diving in at random to find things available on audio, I think this is going to set me up for years to come.
posted by protorp at 12:12 PM on February 10, 2023