The Areas of My Expertise (John Hodgman)

Ever wonder how much you should tip a hotel’s starling boy? Or its melancholier? Or its feral turn-down service? Do you even know what these are? Neither did I … until I came upon John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise [LibraryThing / WorldCat], an almanac of miscellaneous facts with a twist: It’s a pack [...]

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The Anatomist (Bill Hayes)

The Anatomist [LibraryThing / WorldCat] was an interesting plunge into one subject (anatomy) and three lives (the author of Gray’s Anatomy, the illustrator of that same book, and the author of this book). It was not the book I expected when I opened it, but it was nevertheless a very enjoyable read. What began as [...]

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The Wisdom of Crowds (James Surowiecki)

This book is a few years old now, and I read it some 18 months ago, but I want to include my review here since the intriguing concept persists in sociology and culture. What a curious phrase is “wisdom of crowds.” Like you, I had heard of the “madness of crowds” and “unruly mobs” … [...]

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Nearly Human (Andrew Grant)

Much has been written about the point in evolutionary history when humans split from other primates, but Nearly Human: A Gorilla’s Guide to Good Living by Andrew Grant [LibraryThing / WorldCat] makes the comparison a bit more personal than DNA analysis and diagrams of an extended family tree. Grant compares gorilla behavior with ours and [...]

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Marley & Me (John Grogan)

Marley was not the world’s worst dog, although it may have seemed so to John Grogan from time to time. He was expelled from obedience school and ate speaker covers so thoroughly they vanished. (I won’t even begin to describe Grogan’s idea for a jewelry-cleaning business.) But Marley was, in fact, a wonderful dog. Their [...]

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J.P. Patches: Northwest Icon (Chris Wedes)

J.P. Patches was interviewed on the radio yesterday. His wonderful television show started fifty years ago this week. My goodness! Who is J.P. Patches? He’s a legend in the Seattle area. For 23 years — the longest run for a local children’s program in the country — the J.P. Patches Show aired every morning on [...]

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America 1908 (Jim Rasenberger)

America was quite a different place one hundred years ago. There are 300 million Americans today. We drive and fly everywhere. We talk on cell phones and chat over the Internet. For the 90 million people living in the United States of 1908, life was slower but the modern age was coming on quickly. Jim [...]

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A Contract With the Earth (Newt Gingrich)

QUICK TAKE:  A Contract With the Earth by Newt Gingrich [LibraryThing / WorldCat] is a book-length proposal for a new environmental policy.  It wasn’t as science-oriented as Bjorn Lomborg’s Cool It [LibraryThing / WorldCat], nor as hyperbolic as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth [LibraryThing / WorldCat].  It fell somewhere in between while trying to advocate [...]

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To See Every Bird on Earth (Dan Koeppel)

Black-capped chickadees own the feeders in my back yard this time of year, but nuthatches, finches, and siskins stop by, too. Through the kitchen window over the course of the year, I’ve seen four kinds of woodpeckers, sapsuckers and flickers [below], as well as robins, hummingbirds, starlings, and others. The back yard is a diverse [...]

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