Tag Archives: Books

Some books in the sciences pretty cheap

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At the moment, all these are anywhere from free to two bucks. The Darwin books are always cheap, the others are probably temporarily cheap.

If you’ve not read The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, you should. It is always avaialable for next to nothing on the kindle, currently this version is 99 cents.

Concerning his autobiography–written when Darwin was 59 and originally published as the first part of “The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin” (1887)–Darwin explained: “A German editor [wrote] to me for an account of the development of my mind and character with some sketch of my autobiography. I have thought that the attempt would amuse me, and might possibly interest my children or their children. I have attempted to write the following account of myself as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.”

Darwin’s son Francis, who edited “Life and Letters,” stated: “My father’s autobiographical recollections were written for his children—and written without any thought that they would ever be published. To many this may seem an impossibility; but those who knew my father will understand how it was not only possible, but natural.”

The autobiography was reprinted in 1908 as a section of editor George Iles’ larger “Little Masterpieces of Autobiography: Men of Science.” This Kindle edition, equivalent to a physical book of approximately 24 pages, includes the complete text of that 1908 reprint.

(You can get The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection for free or a buck as well.)

Jared Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? is currently cheap, $1.99 in Kindle form.

Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence. Societies like those of the New Guinea Highlanders remind us that it was only yesterday—in evolutionary time—when everything changed and that we moderns still possess bodies and social practices often better adapted to traditional than to modern conditions.The World Until Yesterday provides a mesmerizing firsthand picture of the human past as it had been for millions of years—a past that has mostly vanished—and considers what the differences between that past and our present mean for our lives today.

This is Jared Diamond’s most personal book to date, as he draws extensively from his decades of field work in the Pacific islands, as well as evidence from Inuit, Amazonian Indians, Kalahari San people, and others. Diamond doesn’t romanticize traditional societies—after all, we are shocked by some of their practices—but he finds that their solutions to universal human problems such as child rearing, elder care, dispute resolution, risk, and physical fitness have much to teach us. Provocative, enlightening, and entertaining, The World Until Yesterday is an essential and fascinating read.

I’ve not read this but it looks really interesting and cheap at twice the price: Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916

Combining rich historical detail and a harrowing, pulse-pounding narrative, Close to Shore brilliantly re-creates the summer of 1916, when a rogue Great White shark attacked swimmers along the New Jersey shore, triggering mass hysteria and launching the most extensive shark hunt in history.

In July 1916 a lone Great White left its usual deep-ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake–and, incredibly, a farming community eleven miles inland–the most ferocious and unpredictable of predators began a deadly rampage: the first shark attacks on swimmers in U.S. history.

Capuzzo interweaves a vivid portrait of the era and meticulously drawn characters with chilling accounts of the shark’s five attacks and the frenzied hunt that ensued. From the unnerving inevitability of the first attack on the esteemed son of a prosperous Philadelphia physician to the spine-tingling moment when a farm boy swimming in Matawan Creek feels the sandpaper-like skin of the passing shark, Close to Shore is an undeniably gripping saga.

Heightening the drama are stories of the resulting panic in the citizenry, press and politicians, and of colorful personalities such as Herman Oelrichs, a flamboyant millionaire who made a bet that a shark was no match for a man (and set out to prove it); Museum of Natural History ichthyologist John Treadwell Nichols, faced with the challenge of stopping a mythic sea creature about which little was known; and, most memorable, the rogue Great White itself moving through a world that couldn’t conceive of either its destructive power or its moral right to destroy.

Scrupulously researched and superbly written, Close to Shore brings to life a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history. Masterfully written and suffused with fascinating period detail and insights into the science and behavior of sharks, Close to Shore recounts a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history with startling immediacy.

Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb by by William Lanouette looks interesting:

Well-known names such as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Edward Teller are usually those that surround the creation of the atom bomb. One name that is rarely mentioned is Leo Szilard, known in scientific circles as “father of the atom bomb.” The man who first developed the idea of harnessing energy from nuclear chain reactions, he is curiously buried with barely a trace in the history of this well-known and controversial topic.
Born in Hungary and educated in Berlin, he escaped Hitler’s Germany in 1933 and that first year developed his concept of nuclear chain reactions. In order to prevent Nazi scientists from stealing his ideas, he kept his theories secret, until he and Albert Einstein pressed the US government to research atomic reactions and designed the first nuclear reactor. Though he started his career out lobbying for civilian control of atomic energy, he concluded it with founding, in 1962, the first political action committee for arms control, the Council for a Livable World.

Besides his career in atomic energy, he also studied biology and sparked ideas that won others the Nobel Prize. The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, where Szilard spent his final days, was developed from his concepts to blend science and social issues.

Your Summer Novel Reading List

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I’m avoiding books that are recent so you can get a deal on price, and to bring books from the past that you didn’t read but should have back into focus. Each of these, I’ve either read (most of them) or have a recommendation from top notch sources. You should be able to finish then all by the end of summer, easily, and you can report back. Meanwhile, if you have other suggestions, let me know and I’ll periodically add them to the main post unless I think they are bogus.

Happy reading!

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

People of the Book: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks

Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author.

Called “a tour de force”by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain.

When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding-an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair-only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history….

Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself-to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed-and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe.

In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign-and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions-and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad’s ancient powers-one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful-and utterly unforgettable.

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang

Charles Wang, a brash, lovable businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, has just lost everything in the financial crisis. So he rounds up two of his children from schools that he can no longer afford and packs them into the only car that wasn’t repossessed.

Together with their wealth-addicted stepmother, Barbra, they head on a cross-country journey from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the Upstate New York retreat of the eldest Wang daughter, Saina. The trip brings them together in a way money never could.

The Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear.

That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive.

But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

Three books by by Mary Doria Russell:

The Sparrow: A Novel
Children of God (The Sparrow series)

These two books go together. I’ve written about them before. For the above books I supplied the usual text given by the publisher, but for these two, that is inadequate.

These two novels are a four-field anthropologist’s take on what happens when a) civilization, such as it is, advances to the point where religion is gone, governments don’t exist, but that’s OK, everything is being run by giant corporations; and b) a group of people including a child prostitute and a Jesuit missionary fly in a space-ship retrofitted asteroid to a planet with two forms of sentient life, both somewhat resembling, in my mind, Barney the Friendly Dinosaur, but without his attitude or weird little friends. These two sentient species have a symbiotic(ish) relationship. The interaction between the Earthlings and the others is long and complex and plays out over several years, complexified by the fact that the relationship between the Earthlings and their own people back on earth plays out over many years affected by relativistic time slow down.

And so on. Anyway, two of the best books I’ve ever read, just go read them, your enjoyment is guaranteed.

Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral

Mary Doria Russell, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Sparrow, returns with Epitaph. An American Iliad, this richly detailed and meticulously researched historical novel continues the story she began in Doc, following Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday to Tombstone, Arizona, and to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

A deeply divided nation. Vicious politics. A shamelessly partisan media. A president loathed by half the populace. Smuggling and gang warfare along the Mexican border. Armed citizens willing to stand their ground and take law into their own hands. . . .

That was America in 1881.

All those forces came to bear on the afternoon of October 26 when Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers faced off against the Clantons and the McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona. It should have been a simple misdemeanor arrest. Thirty seconds and thirty bullets later, three officers were wounded and three citizens lay dead in the dirt.

Wyatt Earp was the last man standing, the only one unscathed. The lies began before the smoke cleared, but the gunfight at the O.K. Corral would soon become central to American beliefs about the Old West.

Epitaph tells Wyatt’s real story, unearthing the Homeric tragedy buried under 130 years of mythology, misrepresentation, and sheer indifference to fact. Epic and intimate, this novel gives voice to the real men and women whose lives were changed forever by those fatal thirty seconds in Tombstone. At its heart is the woman behind the myth: Josephine Sarah Marcus, who loved Wyatt Earp for forty-nine years and who carefully chipped away at the truth until she had crafted the heroic legend that would become the epitaph her husband deserved.

The Sympathizer: A Novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as six other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the year.

With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal.

The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.

Happy Anniversary Harry Potter!

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Today is the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Harry Potter phenomenon.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published on this day in 1997, and Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) were produced with regularity afterwards, eventually in some degree of step with the movies.

Author J. K. Rowling was to produce a number of Harry Potter related things later, but she also started a series that we hope continues about something unrelated to the world of wizardry and witchcraft, with the production of a series of books starting with The Casual Vacancy about a British detective and his very interesting assistant.

If you have not read these, read them now. If you have read the Harry Potter series, red it again now.

Some inexpensive science related books

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I know some of you cheapskates will want to pick up these books … well, not really pick them up, but rather, instantiate them on your eReader. These are all 2 bucks or less for the Kindle version, at the moment, price presumably subject to change at any moment.

How the mind might or might not work

This is a collection of writings by various experts on how the mind works. They are not all right, but they are all intertesting. Includes Pinker, Lakoff, etc. Personally, I think there is a bit of a bias in the listing of authors towards a certain school of thought that I don’t personally think nails the mind down very well, but most of these essays are worth reading even if it is just to yell at them: The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness

A book by Sean B. Carrroll

The never-before-told account of the intersection of some of the most insightful minds of the 20th century, and a fascinating look at how war, resistance, and friendship can catalyze genius.

In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis and ascended to prominent, dangerous roles. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and through their passionate determination and rare talent they emerged as leading voices of modern literature and biology, each receiving the Nobel Prize in their respective fields.

Drawing upon a wealth of previously unpublished and unknown material gathered over several years of research, Brave Genius tells the story of how each man endured the most terrible episode of the twentieth century and then blossomed into extraordinarily creative and engaged individuals. It is a story of the transformation of ordinary lives into exceptional lives by extraordinary events–of courage in the face of overwhelming adversity, the flowering of creative genius, deep friendship, and of profound concern for and insight into the human condition.


Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize

It might too late for this one

I don’t know anything about this book, so I’m not really recommending it, but it is only 2 bucks.

We live in complicated, dangerous times. Present and future presidents need to know if North Korea’s nascent nuclear capability is a genuine threat to the West, if biochemical weapons are likely to be developed by terrorists, if there are viable alternatives to fossil fuels that should be nurtured and supported by the government, if private companies should be allowed to lead the way on space exploration, and what the actual facts are about the worsening threats from climate change. This is “must-have” information for all presidents—and citizens—of the twenty-first century.

Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines

How to talk to Rick Perry about climate change

No, really.

How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate dismantles all the most pernicious misunderstandings using the strongest explanations science has to offer. Armed with airtight arguments, you’ll never be at a loss for words again—no matter how convincing or unexpected the misconception you’re faced with. And with our planet’s future in our hands, the time to change minds is now: The sooner we can agree, once and for all, that climate change is a significant threat to our well-being, the sooner we can start to do something about it.

How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate: Let Science Do the Talking the Next Time Someone Tries to Tell You…The Climate Isn’t Changing; Global Warming … Other Arguments It’s Time to End for Good

Now for something entirely different

I’ve not read these, though I’ve got them on my eShelf, but I know most of you have either read them or plan on doing so. These are the “golden compass” books. I don’t know much about them but I know they are popular among non-believers/atheists/scientists/nerds/geeks, and they happen to have gotten suddenly cheap.

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials

The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials

The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials

Coding iPhone apps for Kids

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I can’t give this a meaningful review because I don’t have the setup to test it out, Coding iPhone Apps for Kids: A playful introduction to Swift by Gloria Winquist and Matt McCarthy looks like it is up to the high standards of this publisher and these authors, and might be just the thing for your kid:

Apple’s Swift is a powerful, beginner-friendly programming language that anyone can use to make cool apps for the iPhone or iPad. In Coding iPhone Apps for Kids, you’ll learn how to use Swift to write programs, even if you’ve never programmed before.

You’ll work in the Xcode playground, an interactive environment where you can play with your code and see the results of your work immediately! You’ll learn the fundamentals of programming too, like how to store data in arrays, use conditional statements to make decisions, and create functions to organize your code—all with the help of clear and patient explanations.

Once you master the basics, you’ll build a birthday tracker app so that you won’t forget anyone’s birthday and a platform game called Schoolhouse Skateboarder with animation, jumps, and more!

As you begin your programming adventure, you’ll learn how to:

  • Build programs to save you time, like one that invites all of your friends to a party with just the click of a button!
  • Program a number-guessing game with loops to make the computer keep guessing until it gets the right answer
  • Make a real, playable game with graphics and sound effects using SpriteKit
  • Challenge players by speeding up your game and adding a high-score system

    • Why should serious adults have all the fun? Coding iPhone Apps for Kids is your ticket to the exciting world of computer programming.

    Covers Swift 3.x and Xcode 8.x. Requires OS X 10.11 or higher.

    Example Page:

    TOC:

    Author Bio
    Gloria Winquist became hooked on iOS development in 2011 and has been programming professionally ever since. She works as an iOS developer at LumiraDx.

    Matt McCarthy has released more than 20 apps as part of a two-person team, Tomato Interactive LLC. He works as a software engineer at LumiraDx.

    Table of contents
    PART 1: Xcode and Swift
    Chapter 1: Hello, World!
    Chapter 2: Learning to Code in a Playground
    Chapter 3: Making Choices
    Chapter 4: Writing Code That Loops
    Chapter 5: Keeping Your Programs Safe with Optionals
    Chapter 6: Storing Collections in Dictionaries and Arrays
    Chapter 7: Functions Are a Party, and You’re Invited
    Chapter 8: Custom Classes and Structs

    PART 2: Birthday Tracker
    Chapter 9: Creating Buttons and Screens on the Storyboard
    Chapter 10: Adding a Birthday Class and Handling User Input
    Chapter 11: Displaying Birthdays
    Chapter 12: Saving Birthdays
    Chapter 13: Getting Birthday Notifications

    PART 3: Schoolhouse Skateboarder
    Chapter 14: Setting the Stage
    Chapter 15: Making Schoolhouse Skateboarder a Real Game
    Chapter 16: Using the SpriteKit Physics Engine
    Chapter 17: Adjusting Difficulty, Collecting Gems, and Keeping Score
    Chapter 18: Game State, Menus, Sound, and Special Effects

    A guide to the butterflies (book review)

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    A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America is a field guider’s field guide. It is the shape and size of a traditional field guide. The designers of this book said “we don’t need no stinking margins” so there are no margins. Color bleeds on the page edges allow a quick index to major butterfly categories. There is a two page spread visual index. A no nonsense introduction give you the basics about how to use the book, how to be a butterflyer, and how to not be a jerk about butterflies (like, don’t net them and kill them). The front covers even have those flaps that you can use as bookmarks.

    Ranges are an interesting problem with butterflies, since their biogeography is both very heterogeneous and in some cases rapidly changing. Also, a key feature of their breeding ranges is not so much when they are there, but how many times they cycle through broods over the warm months. So the maps are interesting:

    A species entry is jammed with info. The color of the species name indicates something about its range, and key information about habitat, timing of adult phase, etc. is pulled out and highlighted. And so on. I’m giving a few examples of the pages here so you have an idea of how no nonsense serious this book is as a field guide. This is the book in which you find the butterfly, no question.

    This guide, by Jeffry Glassberg, world expert on butterflies, is the revised second edition of what has always been recognized as the most usable and detailed field guid for the average intense person. 3,500 photographs cover all known species in the region, depicting details and variants.

    The guide is photographic, but using modern techniques to this approach (which, in the old days, was usually not as good as drawing) so you have the best illustrations in this book.

    ————————————-
    See also: Monarch Butterflies and Milkweed: An amazing new book

    ————————————-

    The information about each species in together with all the other information about each species.

    Species are grouped in major categories that are essentially morphological. So you go, “look, there’s a skipper” and look it up in the section on skippers.

    This is an excellent must have field guide.

    From the publisher’s site:

    Jeffrey Glassberg is a leading butterfly authority and author. He is president of the North American Butterfly Association, editor of American Butterflies magazine, and the author of many books, including the Butterflies through Binoculars series. He is adjunct professor of evolutionary biology at Rice University and lives in Morristown, New Jersey.

    The Table of Contents:

    Introduction 7
    About This Book 7
    Butterfly Identification 7
    Butterfly Biology 8
    Names 9
    Interacting with Butterflies 9
    “Releasing” Butterflies 10
    Conservation 11
    North American Butterfly Association 11
    Wing Areas and Body Parts 12
    About the Species Accounts 13
    Abbreviations, Symbols and Glossary 14
    About the Maps 15
    Swallowtails Papilionidae 16
    Parnassians Parnassiinae 16
    True Swallowtails Papilioninae 18
    Whites and Yellows Pieridae 36
    Whites Pierinae 36
    Marbles and Orangetips 46
    Yellows Coliadinae 52
    Sulphurs 52
    Yellows 68
    Gossamerwings Lycaenidae 74
    Coppers Lycaeninae 74
    Harvester Miletinae 83
    Hairstreaks Theclinae 84
    Blues Polyommatinae 122
    Metalmarks Riodinidae 146
    Brushfoots Nymphalidae 158
    Heliconians and Fritillaries Heliconiinae 158
    Heliconians 158
    Greater Fritillaries 162
    Lesser Fritillaries 182
    True Brushfoots Nymphalinae 190
    Patches, Checkerspots and Crescents 190
    Anglewings, Ladies and Relatives 220
    Admirals and Relatives Limenitidinae et al. 232
    Leafwings Charaxinae 246
    Emperors Apaturinae 250
    Snouts Libytheinae 253
    Satyrs Satyrinae 254
    Ticlears, Clearwings Ithomiinae 277
    Mimic-Queen and Monarchs Danainae 277
    Skippers Hesperiidae 280
    Firetips Pyrrhopyginae 280
    Spreadwing Skippers Pyrginae 280
    Skipperlings Heteropterinae 332
    Grass-Skippers Hesperiinae 334
    Giant-Skippers Megathyminae 394
    Hawaii 400
    Conclusion
    Photo Credits 402
    Selected Bibliography 403
    Selected Websites 403
    Caterpillar Foodplant Index 404
    Butterfly Species Index 408
    Visual Index 418

    Some science and coding books you want that just got cheap.

    Other,

    This just came across my desk. These are not amazing deals, but they are pretty good deals. I’ll put the list price and asking price down so you can decide if you want to ignore this.

    A Global Warming Primer: Answering Your Questions About The Science, The Consequences, and The Solutions was $15 is now $10.20. (See this post for more info on this and related books)

    The Greatest Story Ever Told–So Far: Why Are We Here? by Krauss, was $27, now $14.16.

    Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour by Neil deGrasse Tyson and others, was $39.95, now 26.74.

    Ruby Wizardry: An Introduction to Programming for Kids was $29.95, now $13.36.

    Beren and Luthien, sitting in an Ent. (New Tolkien LOTR Book)

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    The brand new just published (June 1) book Beren and Lúthien presents the story of the human (or should I say “Man”?) Beren Erchamion, or “The One-Handed” (AKA Beren Camlost, for “the Empty Handed”) and the Elf-maiden Lúthien Tinúviel.

    If you read The Lord of the Rings you may recall Aragorn telling their story to Frodo.

    This Man and this Elf-Maiden lived over 6,000 years before the time of the Lord of the Rings, and their story is told in several places throughout the LOTR literature, in books that, frankly, most people don’t read. Christopher Tolkien, heir of J.R.R. Tolkien, and mapmaker of the The Lord of the Rings, created Beren and Lúthien from those original texts, and the book, much delayed, is coming out right now. You can pre order it here.

    The story is in the form of Hercules’ myth, with the quest set to Beren to steal a Silmaril, which is a special jewel, from the Ainur Melkor. That would be roughly like trying to steal Donald Trump’s tweeting device while he is under the protection of the United States Secret Service. Or maybe a little harder.

    Beren is sent on this quest because it is the only way he can keep dating the Elf-Maiden Lúthien, according to her Elf-Lord father.

    Tolkien, in his own tradition which was not as uncommon in, say, the 19th century as it is now, having slowly disappeared over time, played fast and lose with his stories, changing them quite a bit across published forms. This happened within some of the texts, like The Hobbit, but more pervasively, across different instantiations of the total lore-set. For this reason, the story of Beren and Lúthien changes a great deal across the full body of written work. This makes it impossible to simply extract the original story and make it into a single coherent book that is also “true” to a particular telling.

    Personally, I would have been happy if Christopher Tolkien had just settled on a version of the story and made this into a regular novel, but I’m probably the only fan of Tolkien’s work that would accept that. Therefore, the new work is much more complicated, written from the point of view of the author JRR Tolkien, integrating text taken from the original work.

    This new book also serves to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the publication of The Children of Hurin. Come to think of it, you might want to read The Children of Hurin first, because it kinda sets up the context. (Since this is about LOTR, people will disagree!)

    Yes, there are orcs.

    The Best Children’s Books #2

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    Installment # 1 is here

    Without delay, here are four five star choices and four four star choices:

    The Emperor’s New Clothes, the classic story by Hans Christian Anderson, illustrated for the modern retro child by Virginia Lee Burton.

    You know the story, so I won’t give you a summary, and the whole point is the illustrations so you should just click through to see. (The graphic at the top of the post is from within the book, illustrating the overall reading level and quality).

    So Few of Me by Peter Reynolds.

    Alternate title: Calming the helicopter parent.

    Leo’s list of things to do keeps growing, until one day he wishes, “If only there were two of me.” Just as the words are out of his mouth, poof! Another Leo appears! Two Leos become three, three become four, and four become more . . . but Leo can’t help but notice that he has even more to do than before. As he struggles to deal with his overcomplicated life, Leo realizes that there may be a simpler solution to his overscheduling woes. Peter H. Reynolds, the award-winning author-illustrator of THE DOT and ISH, returns with an important message for readers of all ages: stop and take a little time to dream.

    I’m Here a second installment by Peter Reynolds

    I’m here.
    And you’re there.
    And that’s okay.
    But…
    maybe there will be a gentle wind that pulls us together.
    And then I’ll be here and you’ll be here, too.

    Pure, powerful and deceptively simple, bestselling author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds reminds us that children—and the friendships they make—can take flight in unexpected ways.

    Other books (not reviewed her) by Peter Reynolds, including a box set:

    The North Star

    Happy Dreamer

    The Dot

    Going Places

    Peter Reynolds Creatrilogy Box Set (Dot, Ish, Sky Color)

    Ish (Creatrilogy), a third suggestion by Peter Reynolds

    Ramon loved to draw. Anytime. Anything. Anywhere.

    Drawing is what Ramon does. It¹s what makes him happy. But in one split second, all that changes. A single reckless remark by Ramon’s older brother, Leon, turns Ramon’s carefree sketches into joyless struggles. Luckily for Ramon, though, his little sister, Marisol, sees the world differently. She opens his eyes to something a lot more valuable than getting things just “right.” Combining the spareness of fable with the potency of parable, Peter Reynolds shines a bright beam of light on the need to kindle and tend our creative flames with care.

    Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (A Click, Clack Book) by Doreen Cronin (Author) and Betsyh Lewin (Illustrator)

    Keyboarding Kows:

    New York Times bestselling duo Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin’s Caldecott Honor–winning book is now available as a Level 2 Ready-to-Read!

    Farmer Brown has a problem. His cows like to type. All day long he hears:

    Click, clack, moo.
    Click, clack, moo.
    Click, clack, moo.

    But Farmer Brown’s problems REALLY begin when his cows start leaving him notes! Come join the fun as a bunch of literate cows turn Farmer Brown’s farm upside-down!

    I Stink! by Kate McMullan and Jim McMujllan

    This is more illustration than words, but the image gives you an idea of the words.

    For fans of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site and Steam Train, Dream Train comes a noisy addition to the hilarious read-aloud series from Kate and Jim McMullan, the popular creators of I’m Bad! and I’m Dirty!

    “Know what I do at night while you’re asleep? Eat your trash, that’s what!”

    With ten wide tires, one really big appetite, and an even bigger smell, this garbage truck’s got it all. His job? Eating your garbage and loving every stinky second of it! And you thought nighttime was just for sleeping.

    The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara and Mark Fearing.

    Introduce kids to the planets and solar system in this fractured fairy tale retelling of the classic The Three Little Pigs. Parents and children alike will adore this out-of-this-world story, which is set in outer space!

    GREEP BOINK MEEP! The three little aliens are happily settling into their new homes when the Big Bad Robot flies in to crack and smack and whack their houses down! A chase across the solar system follows in this humorous and visually stunning book from Margaret McNamara (How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?) and Mark Fearing (The Book that Eats People). The endpapers even include a labeled diagram of all the planets.

    Scaredy Squirrel by Mélanie Watt.

    (I would have given this a five star, but Amanda gave it a four.)

    Scaredy Squirrel never leaves his nut tree. It’s way too dangerous out there. He could encounter tarantulas, green Martians or killer bees. But in his tree, every day is the same and if danger comes along, he’s well-prepared. Scaredy Squirrel’s emergency kit includes antibacterial soap, Band-Aids and a parachute.

    Day after day he watches and waits, and waits and watches, until one day … his worst nightmare comes true! Scaredy suddenly finds himself out of his tree, where germs, poison ivy and sharks lurk.

    But as Scaredy Squirrel leaps into the unknown, he discovers something really uplifting …

    From John Peters at Booklist:

    Gr. 1-3. In a tongue-in-cheek tale that may help to prod anxious readers out of their hidebound routines, a squirrel discovers the pleasures of leaping into the unknown. As the world’s a scary place, what with the killer bees, green Martians, tarantulas, germs, and sharks that might be lurking about, Scaredy Squirrel keeps to his tree, and to a precise, minute-by-minute daily schedule–until a supposed “killer bee” actually wanders by, causing Squirrel to dislodge his suitcase-size emergency kit. A wild lunge to rescue it turns into a long glide (portrayed in a gatefold), as Squirrel discovers to his astonishment that he is a flying squirrel. Eventually, Squirrel returns in triumph to his tree and from then on adds a daily glide to his accustomed rounds. Despite the simply drawn cartoons and brief text, this is more sophisticated in tone than Martin Waddell’s Tiny’s Big Adventure (2004), though the message is similar.

    ALERT: Two very good deals on two very good books

    Other, , , , , , ,

    Every single regular reader of this blog has read or intends to read Stephen Jay Gould’s The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History. I just noticed that the Kindle version of it is available for $1.99, and I assume this is temporary. I already had the book on dead-tree matter, but I picked this up because ebooks are searchable! You will want one two.

    Every single regular reader of this blog SHOULD want to read, or should have already read, Mary Doria Russell’s excellent binary set including The Sparrow: A Novel and Children of God. (The Sparrow is first, COG second.)

    Right now, and I assume very temporarily, The Sparrow is also avaialble for $1.99.

    A quick word about the Sparrow series. It has been classified as science fiction. Others have said, no, it is not science fiction, it is philosophy and spirituality. A lot of church groups read it because of its religious meaning and implications.

    That is really funny because there isn’t a drop of religiosity in this series. There is a priest, but it is a priest mainly operating in a post-religion world. This series is primarily anthropology fiction, which happens to be set in a science fiction theme, and if anything, it deconstructs the central role of religious institutions and makes them look as potentially lame and potentially nefarious and as potentially impotent as the other institutions. Or, really, as products of human behavior as anthropologists understand it, the outcome of a mix of self interested behavior, bonding or revulsion, racism and in-group vs. out-group thinking, the power of institutions, ritual, tradition, class, and exploitation. Set, of course, in the background of co-evolution of morphology of predator and prey. There is also a linguistic theme addressing meaning creation (or lack there of: ouch), development of mind and behavior, language learning, and so on.

    You have to read them, and now you can get one of them for two bucks! (Unfortunately COG seems regular price.)

    Let me add this too, just noticed it, could be of interest for two bucks: The Science of Star Wars: The Scientific Facts Behind the Force, Space Travel, and More!.

    A climate insurgency manual

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    Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual by Jeremy Brecher is a new and helpful book a the growing and essential literature.

    Late in 2015, nearly two hundred countries signed the Paris Agreement acknowledging their individual and collective duty to protect the earth’s climate—and willfully refused to perform that duty. In response to this institutional failure and to growing climate destruction, we are witnessing the birth of a global nonviolent constitutional insurgency. Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual tells how to put strategy into action—and how it can succeed. It is a handbook for halting global warming and restoring our climate—a how-to for climate insurgents.

    An interesting new scifi-fantasy book: Evil Speaks

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    Evil Speaks: Warriors and Watchers Saga by S. Woffington is a new scifi/fantasy novel with an interesting twist.

    If there is a Bechdel Test for ableism, it would pass.

    This is an interesting story written for youthful readers (see publisher’s summary below) that is well written and mostly devoid of the usual plot holes we find in this genre, but where the characters represent a range of non normative persona.

    Benny, fifteen, is solitary by circumstance more than choice: he counts each move to a new town as “a life.” He’s on Life Number Seven. His last! He plans to run away from his paranoid mother, who’s been on the run since the disappearance of his father when he was three. Benny has no memory of it, except for weird dreams of a firestorm and a hideous dragon. After a fight with his mother, Benny packs his bags. Boom! The house explodes, catapulting Benny into a world he never imagined existed. The trail leads him to a gated Neoclassical building in the woods and to six teens he vaguely remembers: Kami is deaf, Amir is blind, Zuma is overweight, Layla is gorgeous but lazy, Chaz is in a wheelchair and Raj is as angry as the purple dagger-shaped birthmark running down the side of her face. These unlikely heroes share a common thread: Benny lost his father and they lost their mothers on the same day. The only clue to the mystery is Benny’s grandfather, Domenico H. Adez, a strange and dangerous man. “In my last years at Harcourt, I can’t remember reading one single fantasy MG or YA that was half as interesting as the world you have created. . . It really was a cool discovery that you had linked these modern-day misfits to Greek mythology and Greek history! So brilliant! Between the fight scenes and the stories and people and creatures of Greek mythology coming to life, it was truly a roller-coaster adventure. And the ending—now THAT is how you leave us wanting for more!” –Editor, Evil Speaks

    Evil Speaks is self published, and the author, S. Woffington, also wrote Unveiling.

    The Birds Of India: New Guide

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    A Photographic Field Guide to the Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh is one of those next gen guides that uses photos but photos that are either enhanced or contextualized to serve the same role as drawings served in the old days, when drawings were better and photos were merely fun.

    From the editors:

    This is the only comprehensive photographic field guide to the birds of the entire Indian subcontinent. Every distinct species and subspecies–some 1,375 in all-

    -is covered with photographs, text, and maps. The guide features more than 4,000 stunning photographs, many never before published, which have been carefully selected to illustrate key identification features of each species. The up-to-date facing-page text includes concise descriptions of plumage, voice, range, habitat, and recent taxonomic changes. Each species has a detailed map reflecting the latest distribution information and containing notes on status and population density. The guide also features an introduction that provides an overview of birdlife and a brief history of ornithology in India and its neighbors. The result is an encyclopedic photographic guide that is essential for everyone birding anywhere in the subcontinent.

  • Covers all 1,375 subcontinental bird species
  • Features more than 4,000 stunning photographs to aid quick field identification
  • Includes up-to-date facing-page text and range maps
  • Contains concise descriptions of plumage, voice, habitat, and much more

    • John F Kennedy’s Birthday Book

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    JFK: A Vision for America. As our political system slides off the seat and into the crapper, I am finding this book to be a worthy and informative distraction. From the publisher:

    Published in commemoration of the centennial of President John F. Kennedy’s birth, here is the definitive compendium of JFK’s most important and brilliant speeches, accompanied by commentary and reflections by leading American and international figures—including Senator Elizabeth Warren, David McCullough, Kofi Annan, and the Dalai Lama—and edited by JFK’s nephew Stephen Kennedy Smith and renowned historian Douglas Brinkley. Combined with over seven hundred documentary photos, it tells the story, in words and pictures, of JFK’s life and presidency, and depicts his compelling vision for America.

    JFK brings together in one volume John F. Kennedy’s greatest speeches alongside essays by America’s top historians, analysis from leading political thinkers, and personal insights from preeminent writers and artists. Here is JFK at his best—thought-provoking, inspiring, eloquent, and wise—on a number of wide-ranging topics, including civil rights, the race to the moon, the environment, immigration, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and much more. JFK demonstrates the deep relevance of his words today and his lasting power and influence as an outstanding American leader and orator.

    Elegantly designed and enriched by more than 500 photographs and facsimiles of Kennedy’s marginalia on drafts of speeches, his notes from important meetings, letters, and other fascinating documents, JFK is a major contribution to American history.

    The august list of contributors includes Secretary John Kerry, Ambassador Samantha Power, Congressman John Lewis, Senator John McCain, Senator Elizabeth Warren, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Robert Redford, Conan O’Brien, Dave Eggers, Gloria Steinem, Don DeLillo, David McCullough, George Packer, Colum McCann, Michael Beschloss, Robert Dallek, David Kennedy, Ted Widmer, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Drew Faust, Tariq Ramadan, Pastor Rick Warren, Jonathan Alter, E. J. Dionne, Ron Suskind, Paul Krugman, Kofi Annan, Governor Jerry Brown, Paul Theroux, Jorge Domínguez, and many others.

    Check it out