An Immense World

 

An Immense World:  How Animal Sense Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong Zoology

(from Amazon)  The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world.  In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved.

(My Review)  Did you know that a whale's siren can be heard from the Bahamas to Ireland?  Have you wondered about the communication of animals?  This book was amazing!  Ed Yong guides us on an adventure, learning about the amazing senses of animals.  He provides so much interesting information, but does not talk over your head.  I felt this book would make an amazing documentary series.  I highly recommend this book.

Demon Copperhead

 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver               Literary Fiction/Coming-of-Age Fiction

(from Amazon)  Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.  Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

(My Review)

Demon’s story is heartbreaking. Kingsolver weaves his story, mimicking that of Charles Dickens “David Copperfield”, adding a whole host of Dickins' inspired characters that young Demon meets along the way. This book deals with the poverty and drug abuse of the Appalachian Mountain region of the US, and also the foster care system. It’s unflinching, tragic, thought-provoking, and sobering- this book is fiction, but these events occur everyday.