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You are browsing the archive for books Archives - Page 3 of 22 - Mountain Beltway.

19 August 2022

Second Nature, by Nathaniel Rich

This volume is a compilation of reporting that author Nathaniel Rich previously published (sometimes in rather different form) in a variety of periodicals, but mainly the New York Times Magazine. The general theme is humanity’s alteration of the natural world, for good or (usually) for ill. The first piece, on West Virginian lawyer Robert Bilott, was the basis of the recent Mark Ruffalo film Dark Waters. Other essays examine a …

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17 August 2022

Book report

Beneath the Rising, by Premee Mohamed A novel of adventure, science fiction, and magic. Two teens from Canada embark on a mission to save the world. Though “mismatched” in terms of their demographics and wealth, they are united by the fact that they met as children when one terrorist’s bullet pierced them both. The story is told from the perspective of the boy, Nick, but what’s immediately crazy about the …

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15 August 2022

Book report

Five books get the Callan mini-review treatment: two novels from Amor Towles, an account of life in prison under solitary confinement, a history of Virginia slavery during the War of 1812, and finally a family account of the discovery of the fossil Hesperornis, a toothed bird, and various associated tangents.

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13 May 2022

Super Volcanoes, by Robin George Andrews

Callan reviews the debut book by volcanologist Robin George Andrews. It details the diverse eruptive histories of Kilauea, Yellowstone, Ol Doinyo Lengai, the oceanic ridge system, our Moon, the planets Mars and Venus, and the cryovolcanoes of the outer solar system moons.

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6 May 2022

Book report

Underfoot: A Geologic Guide to the Appalachian Trail, by V. Collins Chew Published in 1988 by the Appalachian Trail Conference, this volume is a very AT-focused look at east coast geology. It’s also out of date, and a little hand-wringing when it comes to making clear conclusive statements about the arc of geologic history. The summary of geologic events is written for the beginner, not the professional. There’s lots of …

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21 March 2022

Book report

Callan reviews nine books in a big batch – some geoscience, some anthropology, some fiction, some natural history. Something for everyone!

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2 February 2022

Abundance, by Karen Lloyd

Callan reviews a new book about endangered species and ecosystem recovery in various parts of Europe.

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18 January 2022

The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), by Katie Mack

Katie Mack is the incoming Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. She has written an excellent book about the end of the universe, The End of Everything. In it, she explains with wit and insight, four different ways the universe could die. I read it a year after I took an introductory astronomy course, and found that it both covered similar terrain …

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14 January 2022

Book report

Six reviews of recent reads, both fiction and nonfiction, most worth your time.

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12 January 2022

Worlds in Shadow, by Patrick Nunn

Callan reviews a book which sets out to perform a comprehensive accounting of submerged lands through the lens of science, but also with an anthropological emphasis on memory and memory’s longer-lived but more flamboyant cousin, mythology.

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