Tag: Nature

Books

Book 808: Galaxies and Oceans – N.R. Walker

Geoff W

Book cover of "Galaxies and Oceans" with Amazon Affiliate linkI grabbed this after seeing Annabeth Albert talk about it in either her Facebook group or on her email list. I’ve read quite a bit of Walker and enjoyed her for the most part, but to hear Albert rave about this one I was like “uhhhh, duh I’m going to read it.”

Thankfully Kindle Unlimited had it and I was able to read it sooner rather than later 😀

Galaxies and Oceans starts off with the harrowing journey of Aubrey, running away from his past life  carrying only his grandfather’s telescope and staging his own death in a brush fire, and eventually running into Patrick, a lonely lighthouse keeper dealing with the death of his partner in a storm on a fishing boat a few years prior.

Continue reading “Book 808: Galaxies and Oceans – N.R. Walker” →

ARC, Books

Book 806: The Music of Bees – Eileen Garvin

Geoff W

Book cover of "The Music of Bees" with Amazon Affiliate linkI had no expectations of this going in. I grabbed a copy from NetGalley after re-upping my name on the Dutton ARC/Review copy list and if I’m honest I totally chose it because of the cover and the lyricalness of the title.*

I was so glad when I started reading that I fell right into it. Garvin has a way of building place and chosen family that does sometimes feel slow—it’s like COME ON you’re totally going to be BFFs forever we all can see it, just get there—but really is the perfect pace. She also clearly has s huge respect for bees and their place in the pollination cycle.

Continue reading “Book 806: The Music of Bees – Eileen Garvin” →

ARC, Books

Book 779: Live Life Colorfully – Jason Naylor

Geoff W

Book cover of "Live Life Colorfully" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen the publicist reached out to me about this one, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to accept it.* It’s been a few years since I reviewed an interactive book like this and even though they’re perennials on my top 10 viewed lists (oh heeeey Lee Crutchley and Sharon Jones . . . ), I always feel like they’re cheating a little bit, but then again I spent most of last year flying through “trashy romance novels” so . . . yeah.

However, after checking out Naylor’s Instagram and seeing how many of the bright pieces of art made me smile and honestly adoring his love for colorful socks, I said yes.

Continue reading “Book 779: Live Life Colorfully – Jason Naylor” →

ARC, Books

Book 778: The Mosquito – Timothy C. Winegard

Geoff W

Book cover of "The Mosquito" with Amazon Affiliate linkWell if I wasn’t already so jaded from having lived through the last nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d be terrified mosquitos were coming to exterminate all of us!

I accepted this galley back in April when the pandemic was just really kicking off.* And then I promptly forgot about it for a few months, followed by avoiding it for even longer because it just didn’t feel right to read it with the way the world was going. I finally decided I needed to clear my galley backlog and this was the oldest so here we are. This particular quote caught me with all the rumors flying about where COVID-19 came from:

Zoonosis rates have tripled in the last ten years, and account for 75% of all human diseases. The goal of health researchers is to identify potential ‘spillover’ germs before they make a zoonotic jump to humans. (Ch. 18)

After reading this book, I feel like wherever coranavirus came from it was like “hey Mosquito, hold my beer,” and then it seriously underwhelmed when you look at the stats in this book!

Continue reading “Book 778: The Mosquito – Timothy C. Winegard” →

ARC, Books

Book 572: Tip of the Iceberg – Mark Adams

Geoff W

I REALLY want to go back to Alaska. Like really really want to go back and reading this book is almost enough to make me want to LIVE there. And that’s just crazy for me who has a love/hate relationship with cities. I received a copy Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, The Last Great American Frontier from the publisher* and I really wish I would’ve read it earlier.

Adams has a way with words and really putting you into the place he’s visiting. I remember when I tried to recap our Alaskan cruise I struggled (and still struggle) to talk about the beauty and the sheer immensity of everything you see when you’re there. We only visited the panhandle (the furthest north we went was Skagway) and I cannot even imagine visiting some of the places Adams visited during his trek.

Continue reading “Book 572: Tip of the Iceberg – Mark Adams” →