The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

I liked this book because it is of the genre I call “science lite.” Not to disparage Weisman’s research or scholarship – anything but! This is an extremely well researched and well written book. It’s just a mile wide and an inch deep, like my other recent science-lite favorite A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Weisman asks the question “What would happen to the earth if people just disappeared?” To answer the question he consults architects, paleobiologists, petrochemists, ornithologists, marine biologists, and Zen Buddhists (along with many others). The short answer to his question is that in most cases the earth would be just fine, until it was eventually consumed by the sun about 5 billion years from now.

Some places would be very troubled for a long time: Parts of Texas would end up a poisonous hell-hole as the holding tanks and pipelines of the petrochemical plants disintegrated and released their toxins into the ground and the air. Ditto for the sites of the world’s 441 nuclear reactors.

But other parts of the world would quickly turn into paradise for the remaining inhabitants, whose populations would rebound quickly. Weisman uses as an example the Korean Demilitarized Zone, a no-man’s land 151 miles long and 2.5 miles wide which is now home to “wildlife that might otherwise have disappeared. Asiatic black bears, Eurasian lynx, musk deer, Chinese water deer, yellow-throated marten, an endangered mountain goat….If everything north and south of Korea’s DMZ were suddenly to become a world without humans as well, they might have a chance to spread, multiply, reclaim their former realm, and flourish.”

Weisman examines earlier mass die-offs like the Permian Extinction, where 95% of all species perished, and more recent ones like the disappearance of the Mayan civilization. He visits places that people have abandoned for political reasons (Varosha, in Cyprus) and environmental reasons (the town of Pripyat, Ukraine, site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster) to see first hand what happens to towns that have no people.

A lot of the information in this book is depressing. Here’s one sobering fact: every bit of plastic that has ever been manufactured still exists. Since plastic doesn’t biodegrade (okay, I knew that) it just gets ground up into smaller and smaller bits that eventually clog the digestive systems of animals like sea otters and marine birds. It fouls vast areas of the ocean and beaches. In the few days since I read this I have been trying hard to limit how much plastic I discard and I applaud my cafeteria at Grainger Hall at the University of Wisconsin for its move to biodegradable food packaging (made from what? Potato starch? Corn? I forget.)

Despite the pessimistic tone of a lot of this book, Weisman seems philosophical. He quotes extinction expert Doug Erwin, and so will I:

“Humans are going extinct eventually. Everything has, so far. It’s like death: there’s no reason to think we’re any different. But life will continue. It may be microbial life at first. Or centipedes running around. Then life will get better and go on, whether we’re here or not. I figure it’s interesting to be here now,” he says. “I’m not going to get all upset about it.”

Added later: Someone just steered me to this link: www.fakeplasticfish.com which provides tons of suggestions for reducing your plastic consumption.

(Book 4, 2009)

More About The Broken Shore

In the past few days I've remembered two things I forgot to mention in my previous post about The Broken Shore, by Peter Temple.

1. It's very funny in a very very dark kind of way. The dialogue is just wonderful and I especially loved his gift for understatement. I think this might be a signature trait of Australian humor but I am not sure.

2. Temple did leave some ends hanging. Maybe his gift for understatement made him understate some plot points. I could have missed some, but others I really tried to resolve, skimming back through the book trying to figure out who someone was, that kind of thing. Oh well. If you are the kind of mystery reader who needs everything wrapped up in a complete package at the end, you might want to take notes as you read this. For myself, as long as I am entertained and the main problem is solved I don't mind a few loose ends.

The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

I have the same complaint about this book that I had about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: I don’t like to read about gruesome painful deaths and I don’t like to read about sex crimes. That aside, this was an excellent book; the unpleasant parts were easily skimmed. I have read very few books set in Australia, not for lack of trying. They are hard to find, though maybe I haven’t been looking in the right places. I was grateful for the slang dictionary in the back which defined terms such as “ute” (pickup truck, short for utility vehicle) and “servo” (gas station).

This is a traditional police procedural starring the traditional burned-out cop. The fact that it is set on the coast of Australia made it different enough to hold my interest. The fictional town of Port Monro is populated mostly by low-life burnouts and working stiffs in the winter, and in the summer by affluent city folk in their multi-million dollar “cottages.” An impoverished aboriginal settlement just outside of town adds to the tension. The groups collide over a murder and a resort development project which may or may not be related.

The racism and segregation in this book remind me of an earlier era in the U.S. I don’t know enough about Australian race relations to know whether the attitudes in this book are typical of modern Australia or are isolated small town events. I’m curious about that.

(Book 3, 2009)

The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland

A few years ago on a trip to Toronto I saw an exhibit of Canadian art. One of the paintings that made the biggest impression on me was this one, by Emily Carr, who painted in the early part of the 20th century, mostly on the west coast of Canada. Wikipedia describes her as “most heavily influenced by the landscape and First Nations cultures of British Columbia and Alaska.” I just loved this painting and the others of hers that I saw. (I borrowed this photo from the Art Gallery of Ontario Web site.)

The Forest Lover is Susan Vreeland’s fictionalized account of Emily Carr’s life, or at least that part of her life that was most productive, from her early thirties through her fifties. Vreeland does a good job of describing Carr’s frustrations and obstacles, which were legion: not enough money, a lack of emotional support from her family, personal loneliness, the barriers against travel for women, and the oppression and denigration of the indigenous cultures that she found so interesting.

While this sounds good when I describe it, I found Vreeland’s narrative to be dull and repetitive. At times she reduced Carr’s story to a hard-to-believe romance with a fur trader and endless bickering with her sisters. Vreeland’s approach didn’t live up to the story she was telling; in the end this was a disappointment. (But it did provide a map!)

(Book 2, 2009)

2008 Wrap-Up

Sigh. I just re-read my post from last year where I vow to make more interesting reading choices. Oh well. It didn’t happen. I think I was just as bored this year, or even more so. The only bright spot was my renewed interest in mysteries, especially the Northern European ones (set in Iceland, Sweden, the Shetlands, Ireland). The Eurocrime site has been a gift. I have three more of these in my queue right now.

And must I address this book-a-week issue or can I just ignore it? I guess I can’t ignore it. I came in at 48 books in 2008, a whole month shy of one book per week. I know I wasted two weeks trying to read that Edgar Sawtelle book, but I can’t think of why else I read so few. I do have one idea, but it’s kind of embarrassing: recently I find that reading in the afternoon makes me sleepy. Instead of an hour of reading, I end up with 15 minutes of reading and 45 minutes of sleeping. I wake up groggy and irritable and it doesn't seem worth it.

In the next few days I'll post my links to all the books I read in 2008.

Borderlands by Brian McGilloway

Maps, people, maps! I am going to change the name of this blog to “give this woman a map.” Lots of the action in this book takes place in County Donegal, on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Action shifts back and forth among a few different towns, some of which are in the Republic (Lifford, Letterkenny), and others of which are in Northern Ireland (Derry, Strabane). It’s important to know what is where, because obviously in a police procedural the question of jurisdiction is important. But I had a lot of trouble keeping these places straight and more trouble keeping the characters sorted out. A map would have been so helpful!

Nevertheless this was an excellent read. Well paced, interesting characters, a certain amount of angst. At around 250 pages it was also the perfect length, something I can’t always say about some of the bloated mysteries I’ve been reading lately.

(Book 1, 2009)

Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman

I don’t usually go in for tributes in this blog, but I didn’t want to let the death of Tony Hillerman go unmentioned. He died back in October and I’ve been meaning to say something since then. Having just finished up his second-to-last book, Skeleton Man, now is a good time.

Not that I have much to say other than that I will miss him. His books are such great comfort reads because they are predictable enough that I can read them with very low stress, yet interesting enough (culture, history, geography, archeology, anthropology of the indigenous people of the American Southwest) that they keep me thoroughly entertained. Oh well. He had a long productive life and for that I can be thankful. I still have a few more of his most recent books to read but now I want to save them, since I know there won’t be any more.

This one was typical fare; a mysterious death, some missing diamonds, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee working together to figure out what happened. This one featured more of Chee’s girlfriend Bernie, whom I like a lot, so that was fun.

(Book 48, 2008)