Midge Raymond reviewed this iconic book back in 2012, with a unique take: I recently revisited Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle—the original edition published by a socialist newspaper in 1905, not the shorter version published by Doubleday, Page (after Macmillan ultimately rejected it) in 1906. It wasn’t surprising to see what had been left out of the …
by Allison Carruth The University of Chicago Press, 2025 Reviewed by JoeAnn Hart Think of clouds. Light, airy, floating around in our atmosphere. Therefore, the words “cloud computing” make it seem as if was light and airy too. But no. That name was just a monumental feat of green-washing. Calling computer processing the “cloud” conceals …
A novel by Nini Berndt Tin House, June 2025 Desire is the driving force of any story. What do the characters want? In There Are Reasons For This, Nina Berndt’s thought-provoking debut novel, many of the characters are numb to desire because the world around them is so depressing. And no wonder. The novel is …
I was once told that a weed is simply a plant out of place. Indeed, one person’s weed may be another person’s precious resource. In Love Them to Death: Turning Invasive Plants into Local Economic Opportunities, editor Wendy L. Applequist has assembled a diverse mix of essays documenting the many ways that “invasive” species are …
Even before beginning the research for her book My Dog Always Eats First: Homeless People & Their Animals, Leslie Irvine had been thinking about what it means for a human to care for an animal. A decade before beginning the book, she’d encountered a man, with his dog, asking for money along a median on a …
In Your Neighbor Kills Puppies: Inside the Animal Liberation Movement author Tom Harris has written a comprehensive history of the battles won and lost in the UK, US and around the world as animal rights activists fought to free animals from testing laboratories and put the vivisection industry out of business. Harris is an authoritative …
I’m happy to share a new selection of environmentally themed books — including poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Please check them out… Green to Grey: An Environmental Anthology Edited by Ian Thomas Shaw and Timothy P. Niedermann The eclectic stories in this anthology speak to our changing climate and degrading environment—the transformation of our world from …
The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals to Wonder Through Science and Poetry By Maria Popova Illustrations by Ofra Amit Storey Publishing, 2024 If books are medicine, The Universe in Verse by Maria Popova is a cure-all. In a scant 100 pages, it demands nothing but your loving attention, and in return, it feeds your battered …
Chad Hanson’s gorgeous book The Wild Horse Effect: Awe, Well-Being, and the Transformative Power of Nature combines beautiful imagery of the West and wild horses with reflections on mindfulness, nature, and the science of awe. Sociologist and photographer Hanson shows how “the wild horse effect”—witnessing these majestic wild animals in their natural environment—can evoke our …
In Charlotte McConaghy’s lovely new novel, Wild Dark Shore, Dominic Salt and his family—eighteen-year-old Raff, seventeen-year-old Fen, and nine-year-old Orly—moved to Shearwater Island eight years earlier, when Dominic “needed a job, and I needed it to be far away.” While formerly living among researchers, the rising seas have forced the scientists to evacuate, and the …
Nearly 30 years ago, the first genetically modified (GM) seed produced a tomato known as the Flavr Savr. The tomato was engineered for longer shelf life which was where it spent most of its time. Consumers didn’t like the way it tasted and it soon went the way of history. But that didn’t stop Monsanto …
