woodge blog

The World Without Us ~ Alan Weisman
trade paperback 432 pages ISBN-10: 0312427905 ISBN-13: 978-0312427900

When I told people I was reading this non-fiction book and that the premise was "What would happen to the earth if the human race suddenly vanished?" the usual response was to say something like, "So it's fiction?"

Ugh. NO.

First of all, to understand what could happen, we have to understand what has already happened so far.  And then, backed up by scientific knowledge from various experts in various fields, the author explains a very likely outcome of what would happen if we were just -- poof -- gone.  This book is absolutely fascinating.  So much so, that I was routinely ignoring the fantasy fiction I was concurrently reading and kept heading back to this book.  I don't often find non-fiction page-turners but this one qualifies.  And along with fascinating, this book is frequently alarming -- but not in a strident, self-righteous tone or anything like that.  This book presented me with many facts about the earth and our impact on it in a straightforward manner that just makes your proverbial jaw drop.  The two most alarming chapters for me were Chapter 9: Polymers Are Forever and Chapter 15: Hot Legacy.  In the former I learned all about the plastic refuse that is currently clogging our oceans. A LOT of plastic, mind-boggling... the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was mentioned and then I learned that there are at least six other large plastic-strewn gyres*.

So. That's bad. But then along comes Chapter 15 which goes into detail about radioactive waste, how much of it we have, what we're doing with it, and just how bad it is.  HOLY CRAP.  Take Uranium-238, for example.  This "depleted" version of U-235 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.  In the United States alone, there's at least a half-million tons of it.  U-238 is an unusually dense metal, so we've been making armor-piercing bullets out of it.  (They can pierce tank armor.)  There's enough concentrated U-238 in the bullet points that radioactivity in the ashen debris can exceed 1,000 times the normal background level.  They'll emit radiation for more years than the planet likely has left.  (That is, this stuff will still be radioactive when 4 or 5 billion years from now our sun expands to a red giant and incinerates the inner planets in our solar system.  Nice.)

I could go on but suffice it to say that this book should be required reading.  An excellent book.

*Oceanography. a ringlike system of ocean currents rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

A Little History of the World ~ E. H. Gombrich

paperback 304 pages ISBN-10: 030014332X ISBN-13: 978-0300143324

This popular book has been around for many years in over a dozen languages but it has only recently been translated to English. (The reason why is explained in the preface.)  Mr. Gombrich originally published this book in Vienna in 1936.  It is written for a younger audience which results in a clear, engaging narrative.  There are 40 short chapters which include sections on: Ancient Greece and Egypt, the Roman Empire, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Jesus, Mohammed, the Middle Ages, the Crusades, Charlemagne, Martin Luther, Napoleon, and so forth up to World War I.  Then in the final chapter, the author talks about his experiences during World War II and his hopes for peace. It is a fascinating book, covers a lot of ground, and made many areas of history much clearer for me to understand. I highly recommend it to anyone curious about world history. 

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions ~ Dan Ariely
hc 304 pages ISBN-10: 006135323X ISBN-13: 978-0061353239

This was a pretty interesting book, interesting enough to finish, but maybe not so much that I read it to the exclusion of all else.  Regardless, I learned some cool things about how irrational we all are.  Things like the effect of a thing's price on our decision to buy it or determine its effectiveness... the influence of arousal on decision-making (careful there!)... overvaluing possessions... the effect of expectations... and our propensity to cheat when the option is available to us.  The author details many little experiments that he and his colleagues used to bolster his conclusions and I was amused at how many of them involved beer in some fashion.  Clearly he's a smart man.

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
~ Amy Stewart
Hardcover: 223 pages ISBN-10: 1565126831 ISBN-13: 978-1565126831

I enjoyed this handsome little compendium of plant facts and lore. But it's also scary too. There's more than a few plants in this book that I never want to come in contact with. One that is native to Australia called the stinging tree can leave you in pain for up to a year.  I also learned about several very invasive species of plants that are taking over both land and sea.  There was also poisonous plants that need only hours to kill you after ingesting; and plants good for getting high (mostly mildly) although some of them look very much like other plants that will kill you.  Lesson learned? Just say no.  This book includes handsome etchings.