Nearly every essay is informative, thought-provoking and entertaining. The 2019 is by far my favorite. What do we talk about when we talk about nature? “Science and nature writing are how we share the truth about the universe with the people of the world.” And collected here are truths about nearly every corner of the universe.

That of course includes the natural world. It was a random choice but the last of the articles was about how unprepared the US is for a pandemic (written last year). Either it was a very good year for science writing or the thought process of the editors choosing the articles was very much in alignment with my preferences. The way doctors treat cancer—and researchers look for new ways to fight the disease—is to destroy every last malignant cell. In The Hidden World of the Fox, she pens a lyrical love letter to this beloved animal.”, Waters of the World: The Story of the Scientists Who Unraveled the Mysteries of Our Oceans, Atmosphere, and Ice Sheets and Made the Planet WholeBy Sarah DryUniversity of Chicago Press, “From the glaciers of the Alps to the towering cumulonimbus clouds of the Caribbean and the unexpectedly chaotic flows of the North Atlantic, Waters of the World is a tour through 150 years of the history of a significant but underappreciated idea: that the Earth has a global climate system made up of interconnected parts, constantly changing on all scales of both time and space. I didn't expect nearly as much medical stuff as there is here, and it's all terrifying. Is it an argument that you yourself agree with, or can relate to?

But we don’t know it all. I love this series, but I didn't think this year's collection was as strong as some previous years'. Privacy Statement Why? “She mixes her late husband’s ashes into yogurt and eats him”.

", An excellent compilation of 26 nature, science and medical essays gleaned from magazines and journals. Remember that stuff? Because I’m a writer, I have to believe – for my mortgage payments, my own peace of mind, and my own mouldering sense of self-worth ­– that there must be a way of using language in a way that undermines and subverts language and makes it do its proper job of relating to the world and relating the world. That makes us feel less vertiginously isolated. He points out its shortcomings better than anyone else. Almost everything, says the academic and bestselling author of Being a Beast, Charles Foster. And Mark Boyle as well. And also this: There’s comfort for mortals in knowing that both time-past and time-future is vast, and we’re not. By redoubling our efforts to accurately perceive the world around us, Tong argues, we may be able to craft a better future for humanity. Do you know your straw man arguments from your weasel words? Recommend. By buying a product through these links, Smithsonian magazine may earn a commission. Read. Finally, the female returns, and, recognizing her original mate by the sound of his call, is reunited with the father and their newly-hatched chick.”, Snow: A Scientific and Cultural ExplorationBy Giles WhittellAtria Books, “Go on an extraordinary journey across centuries and continents to experience the wonders of snow; from the prehistoric humans that trekked and even skied across it tens of thousands of years ago to the multi-billion-dollar industry behind our moving, making, and playing with snow. ( Log Out /  Oftentimes taking potent drugs and attending treatment buys a patient only a few more months to live, leaving them exhausted and weakened. Maybe I should resolve to use only onomatopoeic words; which have embedded in them something of the wind or the wave; to reject any words – and particularly words from the romance languages  – which invoke abstractions rather than the concrete things out there.