Look Out for Wicked Bugs!

My partner spent the weekend slogging through work in the garden -- and has the aches and pains to prove it -- so it must be time to talk about garden-related books. Amy Stewart's newest book, Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects (Algonquin Books), offers a captivating mixture of history, science, murder, and intrigue in an A-to-Z presentation of creatures that infest, infect, and generally wreak havoc on human affairs, from the African bat bug to zombie bugs -- bugs that actually inhabit other bugs and force them to do their bidding. Ok, so perhaps this isn't your standard issue gardening book. But it's fascinating nonetheless.

Stewart, who lives in Eureka, California (where she also owns an antiquarian bookstore, Eureka Books), is the author of five books, including Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers, a New York Times bestselling behind-the-scenes look into the flower industry, and Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities. Wicked Plants was also a NY Times bestseller, won the 2010 American Horticulture Society Book Award, and was named one of the best gardening books of 2009 by The Washington Post and NPR. NPR described it as "Bram Stoker meets Agatha Christie in this sophisticated little brew of botanical bogeyman," and the Los Angeles Times called it "deliciously eerie."

"I've always been interested in creepy-crawly creatures," says Stewart. "Like most gardeners, I'm very interested in all the living things that inhabit my backyard." Wicked Bugs, however, goes well beyond the bugs in her backyard! She chose the bugs to portray in her book by considering their negative impact on human affairs. And speaking of portray, the book is wonderfully illustrated by the artist Briony Morrow-Cribbs,

In conducting her research for Wicked Bugs, Stewart visited a number of living bug collections (gak!), such as the bug zoo a the LA Natural History Museum and The Insectarium in New Orleans. She also interviewed scientists all over the world and pored through newspapers, medical journals, and other related reading material.

The following "news reel" introduces the book and gives you an idea of the author's style and sense of humor.

More Honors for Rebecca Skloot

I don't think there's a scientific or literary organization around that hasn't paid homage to Rebecca Skloot and her wonderful and amazing book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. And now The Washington Post has named Rebecca one of the Five Surprising Leaders of 2010. Way to go, Rebecca!

Here's an interview with Rebecca by Tasha Cotter for The Rumpus. And yeah yeah she was born in Illinois, but she grew up right here in Portland.

If you're still shopping for the perfect gift for the reader in your life, you can't go wrong with this engrossing book.

Day 17: The Emperor of All Maladies

It's Day 17 in our 24 Days of Books. Only one week til Christmas Eve -- egad! The book for Day 17 is The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. Sadly, cancer has been with us for a long time -- the oldest surviving description of cancer is written on a papyrus from about 1600 BC -- and it continues to bring pain, sadness, and a lot of questions. It will kill about 600,000 Americans by the end of this year, and more than seven million people around the planet. Mukherjee, a physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective, and a biographer's passion.

Mukherjee calls his book a biography because he is attempting to enter "the mind" of this illness, to understand its personality and demystify its behavior. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers,

One of the constants in oncology, says the author, is the "queasy pivoting between defeatism and hope." One of the hopeful aspects he talks about concerns the work of Dr. Brian J. Druker, an oncologist at Oregon Health and Sciences University and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. Last year Druker was one of three winners of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, often called the “American Nobel Prize,” for the development of "molecularly targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia, converting a fatal cancer into a manageable chronic condition.” Another aspect of the disease Mukherjee covers is the infrequency of communication between the doctors treating people with cancer and the researchers studying it in the lab. “The two conversations seemed to be occurring in sealed and separate universes.”

Here's an astonishing fact: Back in 1953, the average adult American smoked 3,500 cigarettes a year, or about 10 a day. Almost half of all Americans smoked. Yet, as one epidemiologist wrote, “asking about a connection between tobacco and cancer was like asking about an association between sitting and cancer.”

The New York Times review of Mukherjee's book called it "an epic story that he seems compelled to tell, the way a passionate young priest might attempt a biography of Satan." Last Sunday the NYT named The Emperor of All Maladies one of the Top Five Nonfiction Books of 2010 (along with Apollo's Angels, Cleopatra, Finishing the Hat, and the Warmth of Other Suns).

Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.

Here is a short video clip of the author discussing the book and a couple of the major players in his story about cancer research. 

Last Year's Cool Pick Now a Card Deck!

Last year my holiday Pick o' the Year was the book The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe,  by Theodore Gray. I described it essentially as fascinating science meets gorgous coffee table art book -- beautiful photographs of every entry in the periodic table, along with photographs of things that are made up of those elements, all on black background that makes the photographs really pop.

This year the publisher has produced The Photographic Card Deck of the Elements, which provides an over-sized card for each of the 118 elements in the periodic table. Each card includes a photograph on one side and scientific data (atomic weight, boiling point, percentage found in humans, etc) and other interesting information on the other side.

For example, did you know that research of the element tellurium is hindered by the fact that if you absorb even tiny amounts, you smell of garlic for months? Iridium is extremely hard to melt, which makes it useful in high-temperature situations, such as spark plug electrodes. Tiny amounts of the element Tantalum are used in the capacitors in all high-tech devices, such as cell phones and laptop computers.

Call me crazy, but I just have this notion that in the right sort of creative hands (clearly not mine), these could be turned into very cool art projects, for instance, cocktail coasters providing endless cocktail party conversation. And certainly they'd be perfect for anyone studying the periodic table. And, of course, we still have the original book I was so excited about last year -- and it's still very cool. [For a reminder of my hot holiday pick for this year, click here.]

Talking with Rebecca Skloot

On Tuesday, April 12, Rebecca Skloot read from her new book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks at OHSU, as a guest of the Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, The Foundation for Medical Excellence, and the OHSU School of Medicine. Rebecca is the daughter of local poet and memoirist Floyd Skloot, who introduced Rebecca at the reading and also played a big role in creating her book tour. We wrote about Rebecca's book on our blog last week.

Here's a little clip showing us getting ready for the reading at OHSU, the long lines of eager readers waiting to get Rebecca to sign their copies of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and a brief conversation with Rebecca talking about her tour thus far. The book is terrific. I can't recommend it strongly enough -- and we have signed copies! They'll go fast, I'm sure, so don't delay.

"The Elements" is Back!

Recently I wrote a post about my favorite gift book of the year, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe, by Theodore Gray. It was a somewhat sad posting, as the book was out of stock everywhere in the known universe. But the book gods smiled upon us, and the publisher got a carton of the books returned to them from a reading -- and they turned around and sent them to us!!

Before we could even get the eight books out of the box, two of them sold, so now we have six copies left. And then they're all gone until after the first of the year. So hurry in now and get this fantastic gift.

The book offers an eye-opening, original collection of gorgeous, never-before-seen photographic representations of the 118 elements in the periodic table that seem to pop off of the black backgrounds. Organized in order of appearance on the periodic table, each element is represented by a spread that includes a stunning, full-page, full-color photograph that most closely represents it in its purest form. Several additional photographs show each element in slightly altered forms or as used in various practical ways. The book is a stunning combination of art and science that would make a fabulous gift for someone special.

The Periodic Table in all its Glory

One of the books I've been most excited to see this fall recently arrived in the store, and it's a beaut! The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe, by Theodore Gray and published by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, is a gorgeous coffee-table-type book that presents all 118 elements from the periodic table.

"The periodic table," says author Theodore Gray, "is the universal catalog of everything you can drop on your foot." Everything in the world that is tangible is made up of elements. The book showcases each element with a big, beautiful photograph of the pure element (wherever possible), and then offers photographs that show examples of the way that element lives in the world. For instance, Palladium, the 46th element, is sometimes used in jewelry, but its main application is in automobile catalytic converters.

The text that accompanies each two-page spread tells the story of the element -- ranging from the commonplace to the quirky -- and provides the essential scientific data, including automic weight, atomic radius, and a crystal structure diagram.This book is absolutely spectacular and, as author Oliver Sacks says of it, "it will fundamentally deepen your appreciation of the subtances that make up our world."

Best of the Bests

It's that wonderful time of year when we get in all of different books in the "Best American" series for 2009. This is what we've got for you: The Best American Short Stories 2009, edited by Alice Sebold;, The Best American Essays 2009, edited by Mary Oliver; The Best American Travel Writing 2009, edited by Simon Winchester; The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2009, edited by Elizabeth Kolbert; The Best American Mystery Stories 2009, edited by Jeffery Deaver; The Best American Sports Writing 2009, edited by Leigh Montville; The Best American Crime Reporting 2009, edited by Jeffrey Toobin; The Best American Comics 2009, edited by Charles Burns; and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, edited by Dave Eggers. We also have The Best New Stories from the South 2009, edited by Madison Smartt Bell, and The Best American Poetry 2009, edited by David Wagoner.

I haven't had a chance to look closely at each of them yet, but I did notice that Oregon is well represented in this year's essay collection, with essays by both Brian Doyle and Barry Lopez -- wahoo!! These books usually go fast, so come on down while the picking is good.

The Fascinating World of Science

I love to read books about science, although I must admit that lately I've fallen for the lure of the novel and haven't gotten back to my non-fiction roots. While I've been away, a bunch of new books have come into the store that look quite interesting -- here's a taste of some:

• Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, Tourists, and Creationists Battle for Darwin's Cradle of Evolution, by Carol Ann Bassett ($26, National Geographic). Bassett teaches environmental writing and literary nonfiction athe University of Oregon and directs an ongoing summer program for her students on environmental writing in the Galapagos. Her portrait of today’s Galápagos depicts a deadly collision of economics, politics, and the environment that may destroy one of the world’s last Edens. Each chapter in this provocative, perceptive book focuses on a specific person or group with a stake in the Galápagos’ natural resources. Told with wit, passion, and grace, the portrait is as readable as it is sensible.


• Plan Bee: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Hardest-Working Creatures on the Plant, by Susan Brackney ($21.95, Perigee/Penguin). Brackney is a beekeeper, nature writer, and avid gardener in Bloomington, Indiana. Humble, hard-working, overtaxed, and underrecognized, the honeybee finally gets her due in this engaging, whimsical, and expertly written guided tour of the world of bees, filled with fascinating facts, inspiring insights, expert recipes (cooked bees?), and instructions.


• Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife, by Marie Winn ($15, Picador). By the author of Red-Tails in Love, this new book explores a natural world that flourishes in the midst of a crowded and mechanized city. The exuberant essays lead the reader through the cycle of seasons as experienced by nocturnal beasts (raccoons, bats, black skimmers), insects (moths, wasps, fireflies, crickets), and other denizens of the park's trees and swamps and thickets. Alongside a cadre of amateur and expert naturalists, Winn reveals a world that lies hidden in the dark between the bright lights and traffic of Fith Avenue and Central Park West.


• Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness, by Lisa M. Hamilton ($25, Counterpoint). Books about where our food comes from are a hugely growing section of the science-book market, and I think it's probably a good thing that we all lean more about what we eat and what factors determine what's available to us. In this book, Hamilton explores our food system through examining the stories of three unconventional farmers, and makes the argument that to correct what is wrong with the food system, we must first bring farmers back to the table.


• Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique, by Michael S. Gazzaniga ($16.99, Harper Perennial). What happened along the evolutionary trail that made humans so unique? In a lively, accessible, witty narrative, Gazzaniga -- director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at UC-Santa Barbara -- pinpoints the change that made us thinking, sentient humans different from our predecessors, exploring what makes human brains special, the importance of language and art in defining the human condition, the nature of human consciousness, and even artificial intelligence.


• Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham ($26.95, Basic Books). In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, renowned primatologist Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. By making food more digestible and easier to extract energy from, Wrangham reasons, cooking enabled hominids' jaws, teeth and guts to shrink, freeing up calories to fuel their expanding brains. It also gave rise to pair bonding and table manners, and liberated mankind from the drudgery of chewing (while chaining womankind to the stove). Catching Fire will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins -- or in our modern eating habits.


• Waking Up in Eden: In Pursuit of an Impassioned Life on an Imperiled Island, by Lucinda Fleeson ($13.95, Algonquin Books). Part memoir, part nature writing, part adventure tale, Waking Up in Eden tells Fleeson's story of chucking her big-city life to move to the edge of a rainforest in Kauai. She accompanies a plant hunter in search of the last of a dying species, follows a paleontologist who deconstructs island history through fossil life, and shadows a botanical pioneer who propagates rare seeds, hoping to reclaim the landscape. Inspired by nineteenth-century travel writer Isabella Bird, Fleeson renovates a former plantation cottage, enters an outrigger canoe race, and, of course, cultivates her garden.


• The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson ($23.95, Norton). This book isn't brand-spanking new (it came out in January), but I mention it because a) it's a fascinating topic and b) the author will be in Portland July 21st at the OSMI Science Pub at the Bagdad Theater in a "Cosmic Conversation" with Paula S. Opsell, Senior Executive Producer of NOVA. Astrophysicist and Hayden Planetarium director Tyson was involved in the emotionally controversially process of demoting Pluto from planet status (in August 2006). Consequently, Pluto lovers have freely shared their opinions with him, including endless hate mail from third graders. In his typically witty way, Tyson explores the history of planet classification and America's obsession with the "planet" that's recently been judged a dwarf. This book offers a scientifically based but lighthearted look at the former planet.


• And, lastly, a book that I actually DID read when it first came out in hardback but love so much I just must mention it here: The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild, by Craig Childs ($14.99, Back Bay Books). Naturalist, adventurer, and NPR contributor Childs portrays the sometimes brutal beauty of the wilderness in a series of essays focusing on a variety of wild creatures. Whether recalling the experience of being chased through the Grand Canyon by a bighorn sheep, of swimming with sharks off the coast of British Columbia, of watching a peregrine falcon perform acrobatic stunts at two hundred miles per hour, or attempting to rescue an understandably cranky raccoon trapped in a water hole in the desert, Child brings the reader along for the experience. And what a great cover!

There's many more books in the store about the world around us; I've barely scratched the surface of them here. Come on down and take a peek for yourself!

Make Every Day Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day, everyone! Go outside today and enjoy this wonderful planet we live on. And if you're looking for ideas on how to live greener in the world, we've got a table full of suggestions for you. But you can't go wrong by starting at square one with the classic that launched the environmental movement, Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. What steps can you take to make every day Earth Day?

From Stiff to Spook to Bonk

Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women -- or, for that matter, pandas? If you have been pondering these very questions with no help in sight, we've got just the answer for you. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by bestselling quirky-science writer (meaning she writes about quirky topics in science, not that she's quirky herself, but then again....) Mary Roach, has just been published in paperback. Roach is known for venturing out to the fringes of science and presenting her findings in writing that is illuminating and well-researched yet humorous and compulsively readable at the same time.

In previous books she has explored how cadavers decay (Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers) and whether you can weigh a person's soul (Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife). A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically had this to say about Bonk: "I would read Mary Roach on the history of Quonset huts. But Mary Roach on sex? That's a godsend! This book is -- if not better than the act itself -- then a hilarious and entertaining alternative."

Roach currently lives in Oakland, California, but she grew up in Etna, New Hampshire. This is what her Web site has to say about her background: "My dad was 65 when I was born. My neighbors taught me how to drive a Skidoo and shoot a rifle, though I never made much use of these skills. I graduated from Wesleyan in 1981, and drove out to San Francisco with some friends. I spent a few years working as a freelance copy editor before landing a half-time PR job at the SF Zoo. My office was in a trailer next to Gorilla World. On the days when I wasn't taking calls about elephant wart removal surgery or denying rumors that the cheetahs had been sucked dry by fleas, I wrote freelance articles for the local newspaper's Sunday magazine.... In 1996, my article on earthquake-proof bamboo houses took the Engineering Journalism Award in the general interest magazine category, for which I was, let's be honest, the only entrant. I often write about science, though I don't have a science degree and must fake my way through interviews with experts I can't understand.... I have no hobbies. I mostly just work on my books and hang out with my family and friends. I enjoy bird-watching--though the hours don't agree with me--backpacking, thrift stores, overseas supermarkets, Scrabble, mangoes, and that late-night "Animal Planet."

Here's a video of Ms. Roach discussing some of the topics she covers in Bonk:

Happy Birthday to You, and You...and You?

Guess who was born 200 years ago today, February 12, 1809? If you said "Abraham Lincoln," you're right! Then again, if you said "Charles Darwin," you're also right. These two great men were born on exactly the same day: one in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky and the other on an English country estate. [For those of you for whom such things matter, that date makes them Aquarians.]

Both are famous, influential change-makers with long-lasting reputations. Both are known for their clear and insightful thinking and writing. Both lost their mother in early childhood, and each lost a beloved child. Besides a common date of birth, they share many traits and experiences. Yet we almost never think of them side-by-side and rarely if ever discuss the Civil War in the same conversation as evolution. A new book from Adam Gopnik (author of Paris to the Moon and Through the Children's Gate), Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, does just that. As Gopnik says, "the point is that when we do come across those who write well and see clearly, we're right to make them heroes." One reviewer described this book as having 'succulent prose and incisive reasoning." How can you resist?

If you want to read more about either man, we've got books in spades. Some of the Darwin offerings include The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (David Quammen), Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography (Janet Browne), and, of course, The Origin of Species itself (Charles Darwin). Our Lincoln shelves are groaning with books, including Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer (Fred Kaplan), A. Lincoln: A Biography (Ronald C. White, Jr.), Looking for Lincoln: The Making of an American Icon (Kunhardt, et al), Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (James M. McPherson), and, of course, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.

And if today also happens to be your birthday? Wow, are you in great company -- and happy birthday to you too!