Tag: nature

Snow Fleas and Chickadees

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Quesnel, Eve. Snow Fleas and Chickadees: Everyday Observations in the Sierras. Illustrated by Anne Chadwick. University of Nevada Press, 2025.

Call it a small nature guide or a short literary companion. Either way Quesnel is motivated to share her observations about nature while living in the Sierra Nevada. What started as a column in a local paper has turned into a cute little book. Quesnel can tell you where to go to find a stand of Quaking Aspen to witness their splendor when the leaves turn golden. She solved a long standing curiosity I had (but was too lazy to research) about the “eyes” of birch trees. I am a fan of foraging for food so pulling fir needles of the trees for a snack made me hungry. But you won’t learn just about trees. Animals and birds and insects each have a chapter. How different spiders make their webs was pretty fascinating. Swallow tail butterflies can lose their tails and live. Who knew?
Much like other (short) ebooks, Snow Fleas does not start until page 30 of the 192 page book. I wished it was longer!

I won’t find a sooty grouse or a pica in my neck of the woods.

author fact: I liked how humble Quesnel is, saying “I am not an “ist” of any kind (preface, page 8).

Book trivia: Snow Fleas started as a newspaper column. I said that already. the illustrations by Anne Chadwick are fantastic.

Of Time and Turtles

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Montgomery, Sy. Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell By Shattered Shell. Illustrated by Matt Patterson. Mariner Books, 2023.

Reason read: my sister gave this to me as a Christmas gift. I have long since broken my rule about non-Challenge books, especially ones given to me by my sister. She is, after all, the one responsible for the Challenge in the first place.

If you remember (and it is okay if you don’t), my sister gave me another Sy Montgomery book called Soul of an Octopus. This time it is a book about turtles, my absolute favorite creature on the planet. Sy Montgomery and her friend and illustrator, Matt Patterson, spend some time volunteering with the Turtle Rescue League (TRL is not be be confused with the MTV show Total Request Live). This TRL is a Massachusetts-based organization with the sole purpose of rescuing and rehabilitating (when possible) turtles of all kinds. Think of Montgomery’s Of Time and Turtles as a love story; a memoir about her time volunteering with TRL making friends with people and rescued turtles instead of a scientific deep dive into the biological and physiological makeup of the species. She repeatedly falls in love with various snappers and sliders so much so that their stories become an integral part of the narrative. You want to know what happens to each and every rescue.
As an aside, Matt Patterson’s illustrations are fantastic.

As an aside, while I appreciated Montgomery’s openness surrounding transgender and transsexual people (she spent several pages on the topic), if she is going to talk about it, I would have liked to see her dive into the gender specifications and sexual preferences of everyone in her story: Cris, Matt, Michaela, Clint, Emily, and Heidi. I read a good blog

Author fact: Montgomery has written a plethora of books. The only other one I have read is The Soul of an Octopus given to me by, you guessed it, my sister.

Book trivia: Of Time and Turtles has a great collection of illustrations (by Matt Patterson) and a small section of photographs.

Music: Slayer, and “Sweet Home Alabama”.

Massachusetts Bucket List Adventure Guide

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Briggs, Erin. Massachusetts Bucket List Adventure Guide. Canyon Press, 2022.

Reason read: For fun, I decided to read an adventure book about places to see in Massachusetts. Here are a few of my favorite selections:

  • The Tiny Museum
  • the Forest Park rose Garden
  • Gunn Brook Falls
  • Purgatory Chasm
  • the EcoTarium
  • Chesterfield Gorge Reservation
  • Parker River National Wildlife Refuge
  • Hancock Shaker Village (Natalie connection: she performed there!)
  • Pontoosuc Lake (the book doesn’t mention swimming, but fishing is popular)
  • Myles Standish Burial Ground
  • the Museum of Bad Art
  • New England Aquarium (a word to the wise: be mindful of price information. Even though — was published in 2022, the price listed is $10. It’s actually $44 unless you are a member, child, or senior citizen.)
  • Warren Anatomical Museum (gets my vote for the strangest place)
  • Boston Gardens where the Make Way for Ducklings statue is located (I did not know that the Mallard family all have names. The ducklings have J-Q names rhyming with “ack” and mama is just Mrs. Mallard.)

The only complaint I had about the book is that the book is organized in alphabetical order of town rather than adventure. You have to know where you are going before you can chose the event. The “did You Know?” section is a little goofy, but I did learn a few things.

Soul of an Octopus

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Montgomery, Sy. The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness. Atria, 2015.

Reason read: leisure. A coworker gave this to me and how could I resist?

I have mixed feelings about The Soul of an Octopus. If it had been titled The Soul of an Octopus: a Memoir about Bonding with This Mysterious Creature, I would understand the narrative much better. The subtitle made me think I would be getting something a bit more didactic and less charming and scientific-adjacent. Montgomery commuted from her home in New Hampshire to the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts, once a week to interact with various octopuses. [As an aside, if you have never been there – GO.] Montgomery developed relationships with NEA staff, trainers, and fellow volunteers while growing attached to the animals, specifically the octopuses. If you didn’t pick up Soul of an Octopus because the subtitle was a little off-putting, rest assured that the writing is not bogged down with technical jargon. It is an easy read. You will learn conversation-starting facts you can use at your next party; like, did you know an octopus lays eggs like a chicken, fertilized or not. You know an octopus has eight arms, but did you know an octopus has three hearts and will taste you with hundreds of suckers on each of those eight arms? If you have seen “My Octopus Teacher” you already know they are smart, clever, and seemingly emotional creatures.

Confessional: there was something to Montgomery’s writing that made me think she wanted her readers to be jealous of her. I have no idea why I feel that way. Maybe it is because she was continuously putting herself in a special relationship with various octopuses that may or may not have existed outside of her mind.

As an aside, a restaurant that Montgomery mentions, Jose McIntyre’s, is permanently closed. Since it was on Milk Street, I have to wonder if I have ever eaten there. It’s on the way to the aquarium.

Book trivia: The Soul of an Octopus was a National Book Award Finalist.

Music: John Denver, Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World”, Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe”, and Roberta Flack’s “Baby, I Love You”.

Common to This Country

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Munger, Susan H. Common to This Country: Botanical Discoveries of Lewis and Clark. Illustrations by Charlotte Staub Thomas. Artisan, 2003.

Reason read: August is Friendship month. Read in honor of Lewis and Clark’s relationship.

Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, an exploring match made in heaven. Lewis’s specialty was botany and Clark was an expert at creating topography maps. Together, they spent two and a half years traveling the country from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean in search of a waterway passage. Along the way, they were tasked with collecting, preserving and recording thousands of artifacts for President Thomas Jefferson. With the help of Sacagawea and varying native tribes, the members of the Corps of Discovery made their way over hundred of miles of prairies, mountains, cataloging and describing every rock, bird, animal, flora and fauna along the way.
Munger had a diplomatic way of describing conflict with certain Native American tribes. She called their relationship “edgy.”
In addition to sharing parts of Lewis and Clark’s journals and interesting facts about each plant, Munger shares if the particular plant can be purchased in a garden center.

Here are the flowers Munger highlighted in Common to This Country:

  • Osage Orange – supposedly this plant is still growing on the University of Virginia campus. It is said to be the direct descendant of the cutting sent by Lewis.
  • Calliopsis – used as a dye or tea. I want to see if I can grow this in my garden.
  • Bur Oak – fire, drought, and pollution resistant.
  • Narrow Leaf Coneflower – used to “cure” the bite of a mad dog or rattlesnake.
  • Lewis’s Prairie Flax – each bloom only lasts one day
  • Prickly Pear – probably my favorite from the southwest.
  • Western Serviceberry
  • Snowberry – planted on the banks to hold soil in place and prevent erosion.
  • Angelica – used for respiratory ailments and as a sweetener.
  • Camas – used the root to make bread.
  • Bearberry
  • Oregon Grape Holly
  • Lewis’s Syringa – used to make needles or combs.
  • Glacier Lily – the bulb, leaves, flowers and seed pods are all edible.
  • Ragged Robin – beautiful and uniquely shaped flowers.
  • Silky Lupine – probably my favorite of the bunch highlighted since they remind me of the lupine we have at home.
  • Old Man’s Whiskers – a unique looking flower that resembles an old or wisps of smoke.
  • Shrubby Penstemon – related to the Indian Paintbrush.
  • Monkeyflower – it needs a “cool situation” in order to thrive.
  • Bearberry Honeysuckle – not edible
  • Gumbo Evening Primrose
  • Bear Grass – a very beautiful plant that can lapse for ten years between blooms.
  • Ponderosa Pine – Indians ate the inner bark, seeds and rosin.
  • Bitterroot – the state flower of Montana.
  • Wood Lily – the official flower in the emblem for the Province of Saskatchewan.

As an aside, I was thrilled to learn of the pen pal relationship of Bartram and Collinson. while they never met, the exchanged letters for thirty-five years. I find that remarkable.

Book trivia: the map to plot Lewis & Clark’s journey is stunning. Common to This Country was dedicated to “The Tennis Group” whoever they are.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Lewis and Clark: Adventurers Extraordinaire” (p 136).

Early Days in the Range of Light

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Arnold, Daniel. Early Days in the Range of Light: encounters with legendary mountaineers. Counterpoint, 2009.

Reason read: In honor of nature.

What makes Early Days in the Range of Light so special is that Arnold not only follows in the footsteps of great naturalists and mountaineers from 1864 to 1931, he truly wants to be in their company. He says of one excursion, “I joined their little camp, too, as best I could with 143 years between us” (p 11) and “They sat on top for an hour or so, and I shared their seat for half that time” (p 216). He imagines where each adventurer slept, ate, and placed every toehold while climbing majestic mountains. There is a romance to Arnold’s writing; a deep appreciation for the California mountains and the ghosts that linger there.
Having just spent three short days exploring the wonders of Yosemite, I could picture every landmark Arnold mentioned: Half Dome, Yosemite Fall, Glacier Point, El Capitan, I could go on. Early Days in the Range of Light is probably my favorite book I have read this year.

I love it when a book teaches me something unexpected. The art of Bolton Coit Brown is fantastic and I had never heard of him before. Joseph LeConte spent sixteen years to map the entire Sierra Range in comprehensive detail, the first of its kind. Naming a mountain peak after your institution of education was a thing.

Lines I liked, “But I have begun to see the limitations imposed by the lines we draw” (p 181) and “The mountains have a way of propagating human echoes” (p 244).

Natalie Merchant connection: Every time a man left his family to climb a mountain or spend days hiking in the wilderness I thought of the line, “Can you love the land and love me, too?” from Cowboy Romance.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” (p 64).

Meetings with Remarkable Trees

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Pakenham, Thomas. Meetings with Remarkable Trees. Random House, 1998.

Reason read: Arbor Day is in June in some states (the National Arbor Day is in April).

Thomas Pakenham proclaims Meetings with Remarkable Trees to be a “book of British tree portraits” and indeed, he has personified trees into categories of natives, travelers, shrines, fantasies, and survivors. He will tell you from where certain trees have immigrated like they are refugees of war. He will give their ages like gossip out of the tabloids.
My favorite section was about the trees he called shrines. These are the mystical trees that were sacred to the landscape and continue to hold ancient secrets. Remarkably beautiful.
In reading Meetings with Remarkable Trees I discovered that I absolutely love the Ginkgo biloba tree, but the Davidia Involucrata, the Handkerchief or Dove tree, is also truly beautiful. Another jaw-dropping fact I enjoyed learning concerned the Himalayan Magnolia and how its blooms grow to be almost a foot in diameter.
The unexpected delight of Meetings with Remarkable Trees was Pakenham’s subtle humor. I giggled when he called Aelian a killjoy. When Pakenham said he didn’t normally hugged trees I had to laugh because I do hug trees on a regular basis.
The true mastery of Meetings with Remarkable Trees is Pakenham’s ability to demonstrate the sheer size of each tree. Most photographs have a person standing next to the tree’s massive trunk for perspective. At the end of the book Pakenham includes a gazetteer which provides information on the National Trust trees, the Forest Enterprise trees, the trees that are regularly accessible to the public and those that are on private property.

Author fact: Pakenham is an Earl.

Book trivia: take the time to read Pakenham’s acknowledgments. He actually takes the time to thank landowners for allowing him to photograph trees on their property.

Playlist: Handel

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 500s” (p 70).

Bird News

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Laux, E. Vernon. Bird News: Vagrants and Visitors on a Peculiar Island. Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999.

Reason read: Massachusetts ratified the U.S. Constitution in the month of February. I also needed a book with a bird on the cover for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge of 2024.

Whether it be off the coast of Massachusetts or Maine, any time on an island is fantastic.
Beyond looking for migratory birds, Laux wants the reader to find a peeper in spring or listen to the sounds of a timberdoodle (whatever that is). His love of nature is apparent on every page, but to be fair, he could get a little preachy at times. He admonished people to not bring their dogs to the beach for fear of stressing out the plover population.
An interesting addition to Bird News is the mini biography of Roger Peterson after his death. The name might sound familiar if you have ever picked up a field guide to birds. Peterson’s illustrations were paramount to identifying a wide variety of birds.
Laux always referred to himself as “this writer” except for one time when he wrote about birding with his son. Was the pronoun ‘I’ a slip of the pen?
Confessional: I could only digest Bird News a few pages at a time. Arranged in loose chronological order by day (but not year), Bird News is a journal of all the bird sightings made by various people on the Cape, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. The entries become a little repetitious after five or six pages because the compilation was originally written for a column for a local newspaper. Laux had a hotline for people to report the birds they saw. As an aside, I am sure people enjoyed seeing themselves named in print after they called in a bird sighting.
All in all, I enjoyed Bird News. It got me thinking about the lives (and deaths) of our feathered friends. How bad weather can be good for birding especially during migration seasons. The cycle of breeding once spring migration is over. What to do if you find an abandoned baby bird.

Interesting fact: Laux uses the phrase, “inquiring minds want to know” and it sounded super familiar so I did some research to jog my memory. The original phrase was “Enquiring” and it was used in a television ad in the 1980s to drum up readers for the National Enquirer.
Another interesting fact: worm-eating warblers have the highest density in a place I frequently hike. That was cool to learn.

Lines I liked. None. According to the copyright I need to seek permission, even for a review. I can tell you this: I appreciated that Laux quoted a wide range of literary greats like Emerson, Shakespeare, Frost, Welty, Dickinson, Rilke, Browning, Eliot, and Rossetti.

Author fact: Laux reminded me of Natalie Merchant. She remembered her singing coach. Laux thanked an eighth grade science teacher who sparked the interest in nature.

Book trivia: I would have expected more illustrations or even photographs of New England migratory birds, but Bird News is curiously devoid of any except three black and whites of a Tufted Titmouse, a Black-Capped Chickadee and a chickmouse. Once I got to the end of the book I understood why these three birds were so important to Laux. A chickmouse is a hybrid Chickadee and Titmouse. I thought it would be better if they named it a Titadee.

Nancy said: I don’t know Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket to know exactly what Pearl is talking about in her comments about Bird News.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Martha’s Vineyard” (p 141).

Orchid Thief

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Orlean, Susan. The Orchid Thief. Ballantine Books, 1998.

Reason read: I swore I got rid of all categories regarding the best time to travel to a region but somehow this one slipped by. December is the best time to visit the Caribbean. I swear, this is the last one for this category. And! And this book doesn’t really fit in the genre, so there you go. Luckily, I also needed a book with a flower on its cover for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge…

Orchids have been described as evil, mysterious, challenging, captivating, beautiful, the devil, sexual, an obsession…
John Laroche seemed like an interesting character. Susan Orlean found him to be the most “moral amoral person she had ever known” (p 6). Is this why she chose to write his biography? I don’t think it was for the love of orchids. If I am being honest, Orchid Thief isn’t a biography of John Laroche either.
A few facts I picked up about orchids: They can live seemingly forever; they often outlive their owners. They are incredibly durable despite being difficult to grow from seed. (As an aside, I now want to visit the New York Botanical Gardens to see the 150 year old wonders.) Here’s something I can spout at a party the next time I need small talk: Charles Darrow, the inventor of the game Monopoly, retired at the age of forty-six to devote himself to all things orchids. What is it about these flowers? I see them at Home Depot and think they are garishly ugly.
Then there were all the things I learned about Florida: the development of the swamp lands, the way anything can grow there (I have a story about that for later), the mystery of Osceola’s head. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the whole state of Florida was one big cesspool for scams.
All in all, Orchid Thief was entertaining.

I love it when a book makes me explore history, geography, or biography. This time I needed to seen the image of Annie Paxton sitting on a ginormous lily pad.

So. The Grow Anywhere story. A friend of mine moved to Florida to be closer to his granddaughter. One day he and said granddaughter were eating peaches. Once granddaughter was finished eating the fruit she didn’t know what to do with the pit. She asked her grandfather if she could plant it. They now have a peach tree in their backyard. Whether it is bearing fruit, I do not know.

As an aside, I was reminded of an episode of Northern Exposure when Laroche’s boss couldn’t spend more time with Orlean due to the fact he had Japanese investors in town. Golf course?

Author fact: Orlean used to write for Newsweek.

Book trivia: Orchid Thief started as a piece in a Florida newspaper and the Orlean wrote about it in the New Yorker. Suddenly it became worthy of a whole book.

Playlist: “Polly Wolly Doodle”, “My Darling Clementine”, Grateful Dead, Mama Cass, “Yes, We Have No Bananas Today”, “Down in the Boondocks”, “Jailhouse Rock”, and “It’s My Desire to Live for Jesus”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in two chapters. First, in “Dewey Deconstructed” (p 73) and again in “Line that Linger, Sentences that Stick” (p 143).

Dayhiker’s Guide to the National Parks

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Oswald, Michael Joseph. The Dayhiker’s Guide to the National Parks. Stone Road Press, 2023.

Reason read: I am very excited about this Early Review pick from LibraryThing. I love to hike. I want to travel around the country and see every national park. I’ll be sure to take this book with me.

First impressions after cracking open The Dayhiker’s Guide to the National Parks:

  • Beautiful color photographs in full page.
  • The copyright is amusing.
  • Easily organized by regions: East, North, South, Southwest (because it deserves its own chapter), West, Alaska, and Remote Islands.
  • Good to know the average distance of hikes is 5.8 miles (almost my favorite distance).
  • Maps are generated from USGS National Map data.
  • Terrain, elevation, trailheads, parking information – including parking spots (?!), and shuttle service information is included where applicable.
  • Elevation information is sourced from Google Earth.
  • Trail map legend is easy to understand.
  • Time zone information.
  • Inclusion of national monuments on historical sites.
  • No index so if you heard of a place but have no idea what state or even region it is in, you are out of luck and will have to scan the entire book only to find it might not be there.
  • Excited to try the online trail location map!

I have a question, though. Oswald makes a list of the best dayhiking parks? What makes them the best? What criteria did he use to come up with that specific list?

As an aside, my spellchecker did not like “dayhiker” as one word.

Author fact: Oswald is a hiking fanatic.

Book trivia: Dayhiker’s Guide to the National Parks includes 198 trail maps. You couldn’t find two more to make it an even 200? Just kidding! 198 is plenty!

Sand County Almanac

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Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac: and sketches Here and There. Read by Cassandra Campbell. New York: Penguin Audio, 2020.

Reason read: Turtleback Zoo opened in the month of June. Read to honor a place that I used to love to visit. This zoo always treated their animals with such care. It has been years since I lasted visited. It could be completely different now.

There are certain books in the world you can’t help but try to read all in one sitting. They draw you in and you can’t find your way out of the pages until you reach the final words of The and End. A Sand County Almanac is one such book, especially as an audio read by Cassandra Campbell. Hour after hour would rush by as I got lost in Aldo’s world. I could hear the calling of the birds in the fields, the rattle of dried leaves in the oak trees signifying winter is on its way, and the gurgling rush of the stream as it stubbed its toes on rocks worn smooth. Leopold’s observations were so warm I couldn’t help but think if he were alive today, he and Josh Ritter would be friends.

Author fact: Leopold smoked. Okay, so it’s not the most enlightening fact, but it shocked me nonetheless. I like my naturalists without vices.

Book trivia: Barbara Kingsolver wrote the introduction to Sand County Almanac.

Nancy said: Pearl called A Sand County Almanac a “beautifully written classic.” Another interesting point. Pearl points out a section I found particularly intriguing. As Leopold saws through a fallen oak on his property he recounts historical moments the tress has lived through, ring by ring. Pearl called this section “transcendent” and I couldn’t agree more.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 500s ” (p 70).

Flight Behavior

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Kingsolver, Barbara. Flight Behavior. New York: HarperPerennial, 2012.

Reason read: I love, love, love Kingsolver’s writing. Challenge be damned!

“A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and that is one part rapture” (p 1). This is the very first sentence in Flight Behavior. The thing about Kingsolver’s writing is that she has the ability to look at the human condition and give it emotions and intelligence. How many of us have been slightly excited about ruining our lives in some manner? There is a certain buzz about the brain when the potential for destruction shows itself. Like imagining yourself hurtling out of a speeding vehicle, your hand reaching for the latch…
Dellarobia is a young housewife trapped by circumstance: uneducated, having only graduated from high school; untraveled and naive, never setting foot outside her backwoods county. She is rooted in place with two small children, always bowing down to the criticisms of an overbearing mother-in-law who still has her son wrapped around her little finger. Dellarobia’s entire life has been one pitfall after another. Marrying her high school boyfriend after he gets her pregnant locks her into the only relationship she’s even known. Poverty has kept her stuck in a never ending cycle day in and day out. So when the opportunity for small indulgences dance into view, she takes them in the form of hopeless crushes and fantasies of infidelity. She was on her way to meet her newest flame; on her way to finally overstepping that boundary of no return when something scared her into going back. Vanity had forced Dellarobia to leave her glasses behind when she hikes up a mountain to meet her illicit love interest. Through the blur a burning fire appeared, changing her life forever.

Lines I loved (out of a million), “Plenty of people took this way out, looking future damage in the eye and naming it something else” (p 1), and “If she could pretend ice cream flavored breakfast snacks did not cause obesity, he might overlook the less advantageous aspects of lung cancer” (p 169).

Author fact: Kingsolver is partly responsible for my love affair with the southwest. Because of her I dream of visiting Arizona.

Book trivia: I read a lot of interviews where readers are disappointed with Kingsolver’s didactic storytelling. Get over it, people! Kingsolver is like that rock musician who needs to tell you about Amnesty International or Planned Parenthood, or how our current political landscape sucks. When the public builds a celebrity a soapbox high enough to see over all the bullsh!t he or she going to stand on that soapbox to say something important to them. How could they not?

Secret Knowledge of Water

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Childs, Craig. The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert. Seattle: Sasquatch, 2000.

Reason read: I’m reading this for several reasons. The original reason was since this is a nature book and John Muir’s birth month is in April I wanted to read this in his honor. Second reason is Earth Day being in April. Duh. Third (and probably most important reason…) I am headed to Arizona in the next month!

I just finished a harrowing tale that involved desperate illegal immigrants trying to brave the scorching harsh desert to make it to the promised land of the United States. Images of Mexican refugees left to die of thirst, roasting in the arid desert played through my mind as I read Craig Childs’s Secret Knowledge of Water. Childs willingly and eagerly traverses this seemingly barren landscape; bringing his readers through ravines and canyons; vast wastelands that look like the epitome of nothingness. But, pay attention to Childs’s lyrical language and a new desert starts to form before our eyes. Dripping caverns create pools of water rich with organisms.
There is an egotistical slant to my interest in a subject or rather, my attention to reading about it. Secret Knowledge of Water was interesting enough but it became more fascinating when Child talked of specific areas I plan to visit in May.

Lines I liked because I am in love with the night sky, “hysterical swarming of stars” (p 14), and “Then the stars took everything” (p 41).
Other lines I liked, “The world changed color when you think you might doe soon” (p 235), and “The entire Grand Canyon is thus a machine devised to capture and drive flash floods” (p 242).

Author fact: Childs also wrote The Animal Dialogues which is on my Challenge list. At the time of Secret’s publication he was a river guide.

Book trivia: The Secret Knowledge of Water does not contain photographs but it does have illustrations.

Nancy said: Pearl wanted to mention another book by Childs but since it was not specifically about Arizona she settled on Secret Knowledge.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “AZ You Like It” (p 30).

Appealing to April

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I have a ridiculous number of books planned for this month. I have no idea what I was thinking.

Fiction:

  • The Warden by Anthony Trollope – in honor of Trollope’s birth month being in April.
  • City and the House by Natalie Ginsberg – in honor of April being Letter Writing month.
  • All Souls by Javier Marias – in honor of Oxford Jazz Festival traditionally being in April.
  • All-of-a-Kind-Family by Sydney Taylor – in honor of April being Sibling month and in honor of Library Week.

Nonfiction:

  • The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs – in honor of John Muir’s birth month (and the fact we are visiting Arizona soon).
  • Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins – in honor of Library Week.

Series continuations:

  • Hunting Season by Nevada Barr to finish the series read out of order.
  • The Game by Laurie R. King – to finish the series started in honor of Female Mystery month.
  • Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith – to finish the series started in honor of Smith’s birth month.
  • The Council of the Cursed by Peter Tremayne – to continue the series started in honor of Tremayne’s birth month.
  • Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov – to continue the series started in honor of Asimov’s birth month.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • From Red Earth: a Rwandan Story of Healing and Forgiveness by Denise Uwiemana.

Cry of the Kalahari

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Owens, Mark and Delia. Cry of the Kalahari: Seven Years in Africa’s Last Great Wilderness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Press, 1984.

Reason read: Mark and Delia Owens were married in the month of December. Read this in honor of their anniversary.

In 1974 Mark and Delia headed to Africa to start a research project just one year after their wedding day. Cry of the Kalahari is the story of their seven years in the Kalahari Desert. Taking turns, they share their experiences living with brown hyenas, lion prides, and unpredictable jackals, among many other animals. Because most of the animals have never seen humans before they are neither threatened or antagonized by Mark and Delia’s presence. At face value, Cry of the Kalahari is romantic and idealistic.

Admittedly, I have a few issues with Cry of the Kalahari, beginning with the trivial. One, how many times they mentioned the temperatures being 120 degrees in the shade. You are in the Kalahari desert! What did you expect?
Two, their so-called research. They went to Kalahari not really sure what they wanted to work on. When they discovered there was little known about the brown hyena they set about to learn all they could about the species, then they added jackals, and yet after Bones, a male lion, was murdered by hunters they changed their focus to protecting all wildlife of the Kalahari. By the end of the book their focus had widened to include wildebeest. How they received funding for such vague and vast research is beyond me. However, the couple is quick to point out Cry of the Kalahari is not detailed report of their research. That will show up elsewhere they promised.
My third issue is probably the most personal. They claimed over and over they didn’t want to interfere with the wildlife because it would change the validity of their research. They cried as animals starved to death outside their food-laden tent. Yet they had no problem performing a makeshift surgery on Bones, a lion who had broken his leg, or smearing motor oil on Blue, another lion who suffered from parasites. Most likely both of these animals would have died without human intervention. Essentially, the Owenes actions disrupted the circle of life in the Kalahari.

As an aside, the description of the cheetah hitting the wire fence at 70 miles an hour is heart breaking.

Author(s) fact(s): The Owenses are no strangers to the media spotlight. They have been on numerous talk shows. 

Book trivia: there is a generous selection of color photographs in Cry of the Kalahari, along with a smaller section of black and whites.

Nancy said: Pearl was actually talking about another book written by the Owenses when she mentioned Cry. Interestingly enough, in relation to Cry Pearl said Mark and Delia were “expelled from Botswana” because of this book (Book Lust To Go p 267).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zambia” (p 266). Confessional: I deleted Cry Of the Kalahari from the true list of books I needed to read for the Challenge because Cry does not take place in Zambia.