The Royal Oak, the democratic oak, an oak for every season and purpose, all respectfully, admiringly and insightfully laid...
The biography of a tree that has been collectively embraced for its multifaceted grandeur.
The oak has never been taken for granted. It may not be the tallest of trees, nor the oldest or strongest, but it is common, flexible and generous in its many uses. In this superb and inviting profile, arborist/journalist Logan (Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, 1995) tells of how post-glacial humans followed the oak much as Basques followed cod, eating of their bounty—acorns in this case—on their way to new worlds, be they Kurd, Kashmiri or Korean. We get one savory oak tidbit after another. Early people used oak to make roads through fens, and employed oak cysts as coffins (“a suit of oak”). The trees were prized for their spiritual qualities—Druid comes from dru, meaning oak, and wid, meaning to see or know: “oak knowledge”—and for their sacred sites (or at least that’s what some of the sites appear to be, though their function is still guesswork), such as the great floating wooden island of Flag Fen, or the many henges that were more often made of wood than stone. And there’s much more to mull over, all of it handled with care and thought by Logan: the construction of northern longboats, the brilliance of the oaken barrel’s design, the superiority of gall ink (Leonardo’s favorite), the oaken ships that allowed for world trade. The author delves also into the tree’s physical make-up, from its clouds of roots to the mechanics of leaf making. Logan takes such joy in his subject that he can find humor even in the tanners’ toil: “When the bark came away, it made a noise like a quack, so a party of barkers sounded like a flock of ducks.”
The Royal Oak, the democratic oak, an oak for every season and purpose, all respectfully, admiringly and insightfully laid out for readers to marvel at. And marvel they will. (30 illustrations, not seen)Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-393-04773-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2005
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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