Darwin's Backyard

Darwin's Backyard
by James T. Costa  copyright 2017

How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory
1. Origins of an Experimentiser
2. Barnacle years, Barnacles to Barbs
3. Nature of competition and diversity
4. The mystery of bee cells
5. Geographical distribution
6. Plumbing the secrets of pollination and flower morphs
7. Masterful case study of orchids
8. Carnivorous plants
9. Climbing plants
10. Earthworm Serenade

Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World 1400-1800

Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World 1400-1800
by John Thornton, Second edition 1998

Part I  Africans in Africa
   1. The birth of an Atlantic World
   2. The development of commerce between Europeans and Africans
   3. Slavery and African social structure
  4. The process of enslavement and the slave trade
Part II  Africans in the New World
  5. Africans in colonial Atlantic societies
  6. Africans and Afro-Americans in the Atlantic world; life and labor
  7. African culture groups in the Atlantic world
  8. Transformations of African culture in the Atlantic world
  9. African religions and Christianity in the Atlantic world
  10. Resistance, runaways, and rebels
  11. Africans in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world

completed reading 11/23/2017

also  Reinventing Africa
         Museums, material Culture and Popular Imagination
         in Late Victorian and Edwardian England
by Anne E. Combes, 1994

completed reading 11/29/2017
Last 2 sentences in Conclusion:
The spectre  of degeneration then, was never easily confined to Africa and the other colonies.  It haunted the very centre of the imperial heartlands and threatened to undermine irrevocably the myth of racial purity which continues to cling tenaciously to notions of 'Englishness today.
New sciences to me:  anthropology and ethnography    

Changes in the Land

Changes in the Land
by William Cronon, copyright 1983

Europeans sought to give their New England landscape a new purposefulness, often by simplifying its seemingly chaotic tangle.
The relationships of the New England Indians to their environment revolved around the wheel of the seasons.
To take advantage of the land's diversity Indian villages had to be mobile.
By 1800 the Indians and colonists had decimated many of the animals whose abundance had most astonished early European visitors to New England.
Deforestation was one of the most sweeping transformations wrought by European settlement in New England.

Written by Historian and Ecologist William Cronon it is very interesting in describing  New England from 1600 to 1800.   Changes include Indians replaced by Europeans, plants, animals, farming, fences, and village living. 

Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind

Today completed reading Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari, copyright 2015
Years before the present;
6 million   Last common grandmother of humans and chimpanzees
2.5 million   Evolution of the genus Homo in Africa.
500,000    Neanderthals evolve in Europe and the Middle East
200,000    Homo Sapiens evolve in East Africa
13,000     Homos Sapiens the only surviving  human species
12,000    The Agricultural Revolution
500   The Scientific Revolution
200   The Industrial Revolution
The Present   Humans transcend the boundaries of planet Earth
The Future    Homo Sapiens replaced by super humans
A great History book.

Catch-22

Catch-22
by Joseph Heller, 1955

A novel, it is set in the closing months of World War II, in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy.  A cover review says it moves back and forth from hilarity to horror.  In my opinion it is the most ridiculous story in a long time.  It is filled with very untrue information all the way. Typical of that is the repeated story about a "syndicate" set up by the mess officer using American aircraft to transfer food and other equipment from and to many locations including Germany. One transfer list included cork from New York, shoes from Toulouse, ham from Siam, nails from Wales, and tangerines from New Orleans.  Very amusing but ridiculous.

Completed reading 7/14/2017.

Walden Two

Walden Two
By B.F. Skinner, 1948
Incudes Walden Two Revisited, 1976

Walden Two is a utopian novel, visited by 2 college professors and 2 young couples.
The original Walden, Life in the Woods was written by Henry David Thoreau in 1854.
Walden Two attempts to provide a greatly improved life for many people. Many questions and surprises in the story, with one couple and one professor deciding to join the group to enjoy the many advantages offered. 
Completed reading yesterday, 6/29/2017.

The Heart

The Heart
by French writer Maylis de Kerangal
A novel translated by Sam Taylor

Very interested and detailed novel describing a heart transplant.
Family activities  of the young man providing the original heart is describe in detail as is the final removal procedure.  Then final chapters cover the family activities of the older lady who receives the original heat.  The final chapters of course describe the transplant procedure including details of starting the heart to operate again successfully.

Completed reading on 6/17/2017.