The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 (The Best American Series (TM))

Very good collection. I subscribe to many of the magazines these articles come from and I still love this series. Very often reading about science can be laborious. This is a great collection of wide-ranging topics that give you a taste of many different areas.

This year's Best American series seems to be the weakest one yet, and the science and nature writing is no exception, it too is weaker than the previous volumes I've read (and Preston's intro is dull, droll and seems to just go on and on). That being said, it is still a great volume of essays. There are quite a few really great ones and most were good, though there were a larger than normal amount of dull essays, and one (Rough) that I wasn't quite sure what it was or why it was in there. All in all though, it is worth the price.

Depending on your viewpoint, the volumes in this series are either treasure houses or minefields. The jewels are essays providing new topics and information to consider. That's also the danger. Most of these articles present the reader with a challenge - "Should I be concerned about this? Should I take some action?" It's almost wearying to turning the pages and be confronted with the need for a decision. Yet, those prompts are not artificial.

Preston, author of "The Demon in the Freezer" and "The Wild Trees" demonstrates his editorial skills with this engaging collection. Covering such diverse topics as the human threats to the seas, the nature of violence and looking for the oldest light, this series of over two dozen articles - with more than four dozen hovering in the wings - conveys how deeply science is penetrating Nature's mysteries. The editor's own writing skills provide a fine standard for assessment and there is nothing either dull or arcane to make the reader stumble. Interests vary, and Preston's choices will meet everybody's requirements. More to the point the subjects chosen and the information provided will stir interest in new areas readers might wish to pursue further.

Each reader - and reviewer - will have particular articles to favour as they wend their way through the anthology. To this reviewer, "Plastic Ocean" by Susan Casey is a foremost choice. Not only is it a fine piece of writing, but the subject - how our plastic products are being gathered into a great oceanic dump, known as the Pacific Garbage Patch - is one of universal concern. Casey interviews yachting captain Charles Moore to understand the immensity of the problem. Lest the reader consider the ocean a fit place to use as a dump, Casey demonstrates how tiny pieces of polymers are entering the oceanic food chain to appear on our supper tables.

In an essay on medical issues, Michael Rosenwald follows researcher Robert Webster as the latter flits from one continent to another in his quest to identify and seek controls on avian influenza. "Bird flu" is but one of many new viruses that were once considered species-specific, but are "learning" to cross over to others, particularly humans. Humans will also be interested in Patricia Gadsby's "Cooking for Eggheads" about how to judge the best way to cook an egg, and why the techniques are important. In a piece rather distant from your kitchen, Michael Lemonick travels to Hawaii's volcanic peak Mauna Kea and the Keck Telescope to watch Richard Ellis pace in frustration at the possible loss of an observing night. Ellis is looking for the oldest light in the universe - light emitted when the universe endured an immense inflation event immediately after the Big Bang.

Each of the volumes in this series contains a title that chains the eye and rivets attention. In this case the commanding lead is William Langewiesche's "How To Get A Nuclear Bomb". Dwelling on the author's analysis of that question will not do here, but his conclusions might suggest some revision of dogmatic thinking. A different dogma is challenged in Ethan Watters "DNA Is Not Destiny". In this essay, he explains how recent research by Randy Jirtle overturns the conventional wisdom of "gene as fate" - although how he derives this "conventional wisdom" remains obscure. Jirtle's work on "epigenetics" reveals how some genes are triggered or quelled from somewhere else. The work is new and still probing, but Watters' article explains the successes and new areas of research.

These books seem to reproduce in my library, with a long sequence of seemingly near clones stretching along a shelf. Yet, they are anything but duplicates of one another. Each editor has made choices of superior standards of excellence, with writing skills and new discoveries in abundance. One doesn't need any more excuse than asking: "What's going on in the world?" to have another collection of essays join its peers in your own library. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Great stuff on science and nature contained in twenty-eight selections, of which I liked most: Plastic Ocean, Notes on the Space We Take, Health Secrets From the Morgue, and the Introduction (by Robert Preston) and least: The Rabbit on Mars, The Final Frontier, and How to Get a Nuclear Bomb. Without necessarily agreeing with all of them, I found the following facts, statements, and/or opinions especially interesting (Pp 12, 47, 57, 96, 100-101, 120, 173, 261, 278 respectively):

"...by weight, [the North Pacific subtropical gyre] contains six times as much plastic as it does plankton;" "...a 65-degree egg cooked for an hour should be quite safe.)" and soft boiling eggs at this temperature "...is becoming the rage with chefs in France;" "A twiffler...is a plate of intermediate in size between a dinner plate and a bread plate;" "...perhaps the thing that should worry you the least [should you wish to get a nuclear bomb] is the American government's war on terror;" "Given the pervasive presence of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom, same-sex partnering must be an adaptive trait that's been carefully preserved by natural selection;" "A globule of yellow-streaked fat oozed through the gaping wound [of a gryllacridid]. It then curled its head down toward the leaking viscera and proceeded to consume its own entrails;" "The duck is the Trojan horse..." [of the bird flu virus], "...a car driven 10,000 miles a year with a fuel efficiency of 30 miles per gallon (mpg) emits close to 1 ton of carbon annually;" "...what you eat or smoke today could affect the health and behavior of your great-grandchildren."

Great writings on a large variety of science and nature related topics. Other similarly good reads: The Good Rain by Timothy Egan (PNW essays), Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (historical fiction on the bubonic plague epidemic), Servants of the Map by Andrea Barrett (natural science-related short stories), The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (Oxford English Dictionary) and The Best American Science Writing 2007.

I always enjoy these collections of science and nature writing: The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and The Best American Science Writing. I assume these two books compete for the best articles. That means neither one can be "the best", but there are so many nonfiction science and nature writers that each volume has plenty to choose from.

This volume, with selections made by Richard Preston (The Hot Zone, The Demon in the Freezer), has a wide range of articles. The science essays clearly were the winners here (my favorites: Susan Casey's article on oceanic plastics, and Patricia Gadsby's on the chemistry of food... I've got to start experimenting with eggs). I was less enthused about Brian Doyle's essay on seeing a fisher, and Bill Sherwonit's bear story.

What I really like about this series is that all the articles are short and enlightening. I always feel smarter having read them. So I thank the authors for taking these complex topics and, through the magic of science writing, putting them into a language that even I can understand... like the mutation in the FOX2P gene, and what that means for humanity.

These are great books for trips, and for gifts.