An animated narrative that conveys a timely message.
A study of coral reefs and the environmental changes they face.
Science journalist Berwald, the author of a book about jellyfish, Spineless, brings a doctorate in ocean science and keen curiosity to an energetic investigation of the plight of coral reefs, threatened by warming waters, overfishing, and pollution. “The fairyland” of coral reefs, she writes, “was the accumulated work over the eons of hundreds of thousands of tiny animals—most no bigger than the tip of a pencil—and the symbiotic algae that lived tattooed in their tissue.” Now coral reefs struggle to survive, a challenge the author observed firsthand in her research with scientists in Florida, Sulawesi, Bali, and the Dominican Republic; visits to a coral genetics laboratory at the University of Texas; attendance at meetings, such as the 2018 Reef Futures conference; and discussions with aquarists, climate scientists, geneticists, biologists, and environmentalists, among many others focused on promoting the health of an estimated 2,400 coral species. While she clearly explains the causes of the coral reefs’ vulnerability, she also finds evidence of hope. By the process of reticulated evolution, for example, coral species can interbreed, producing hybrids able to survive in warmer waters. Public and private efforts are ongoing. For example, by 2021, a huge restoration project in Sulawesi, funded by the Mars corporation (manufacturer of candy bars, among other products), had planted over 280,000 corals in nearly 10 acres, “making it one of the largest restoration projects in the world, if not the largest.” The Coral Restoration Foundation, founded in 2007, promotes growing coral in labs and returning them to reefs. Besides presenting ecological concerns, Berwald underscores the devastating impact of coral demise on communities of color that depend on the health of the oceans for their economic survival. Along with sharply drawn profiles and lucid renderings of ocean life, the author interweaves her narrative with a memoir of family trauma: her teenage daughter’s overwhelming anxiety and OCD, whose causes seem as complex as the forces that assault coral reefs.
An animated narrative that conveys a timely message.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-08730-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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
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