A superb biographical rehabilitation of an indispensable natural scientist.
A fresh portrait of one of the most important naturalists and explorers of the 19th century.
Most historians give Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) equal credit for discovering natural selection, although he remains in Darwin’s shadow. This outstanding biography aims to change that. As Costa, a biology professor and author of Darwin’s Backyard, recounts, Wallace, not wealthy like Darwin, left school early to earn a living. Fascinated by natural history, he spent years collecting and reading before deciding to travel to Brazil, supporting himself by selling specimens. After four years and sending back thousands of specimens, he returned as a respected member of British scientific circles, winning support for research in the East Indies. Costa provides fascinating, highly detailed accounts of these expeditions, during which Wallace killed, skinned, preserved, packed, and shipped more than 100,000 specimens. Unlike many collectors, he paid them close attention, recording their behavior, distribution, and relationships to similar species and making groundbreaking discoveries in biogeography, sexual selection, and protective coloration. He sent home torrents of writing, including his famous letter proposing natural selection. This revelation devastated Darwin, who had mulled over the idea for two decades. Priority for a discovery goes to whomever announces it publicly, which Darwin failed to do. Unwilling to adopt the usual tactic—i.e., announce quickly and claim sole credit—he published Wallace’s paper together with his own early writing. Neither caused a stir, but Darwin immediately began writing On the Origin of Species. Wallace always gave Darwin full credit for natural selection, dedicated books to him, and carried on extensive correspondence. Aware of his money difficulties, Darwin and friends successfully lobbied for a government pension. All cringed after 1870 when Wallace took up spiritualism and claimed that only mysteriously creative forces, not natural selection, could produce the human brain. Although scandalized, they continued to respect his scientific talent, but this may have been the kiss of death for scholars, leading to his demotion from the Victorian pantheon.
A superb biographical rehabilitation of an indispensable natural scientist.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780691233796
Page Count: 552
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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