Octopuses have attracted fascination for millennia. Aristotle (384–322 BC) was one of the earliest fans we know about. Among his other accomplishments, Aristotle was a talented biologist and named over five hundred species of birds, mammals, fish, and invertebrates in his History of Animals, written in 350 BC. Most of his invertebrate observations came from his time on Lesbos in the Greek islands on underwater swims in the Pyrrha lagoon (now called the Gulf of Kalloni). It is mind‑bending to read of his fascinations with octopuses and his observations of their denning behavior and how they change their color and form. He must have spent a lot of time watching them 2,500 years ago to observe what they eat, how they hunt, and how they age.
It’s an hour past sunset, and I’m alone atop a mountain in Southern California, surrounded by darkness. I’m fixated on a 5-gallon bucket, a halo of eerie blue light emanating from the top. A swarm of moths frantically pursues the light, completely entrancing me. This isn’t some odd form of meditation—I’m an ecologist who studies pollinators. Many of these moths (around 60 percent of them, I will later discover) are carrying tiny pollen grains on their long, straw-like mouthparts. Although moths might not be the first creature most people think of when they hear the word “pollinators,” they may be some of the most important on Earth, according to recent research. Globally, moths may even rank with the planet’s most famous pollinators—bees.
It is human nature to prefer our landscapes neatly framed – walls and wooden fences create the illusion that the great outdoors can be controlled and contained. Yet Karen Solie’s wildly unpredictable collection Wellwater flips the script. In this blazingly honest catalogue of human-made hazard and harm, we celebrate instead the contemporary landscapes refusing to be tamed.
The book does not answer all the questions it raises, but that’s okay. It wisely illustrates the process of grief—the stumbling in the dark, the importance of small comforts, and finally, almost, letting it go.
Great Big Beautiful Life is complicated and emotional; sweet, sexy, and ultimately what you expect from the queen of contemporary romance: full of love. Henry would say that, at its core, so is this great, big, beautiful life we get to live.
Lefevre writes with insight, curiosity, wisdom and compassion, guided by her garden and a profound appreciation of what a gift it is to age.
Alan Weisman has found an all-world cast of scientists, engineers and environmentalists who have dreamed big and worked passionately to repair some of the world’s wrecked ecosystems and also to develop processes that, for example, use far less energy than we get from oil