Best science book in a long while

Remarkable Creatures:
Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species
by Sean B. Carroll

Excellent! Just the right depth of field to make me understand the monumental significance of the discoveries made by the scientists, but not so bogged down in details that I got tired reading. I enjoyed every single minute.

He started out reviewing travelers of naturalists and explorers and how their significant journeys unfolded, but soon merely told life stories of the discoverers. This made sense, because many of the modern researchers sit in a lab or stay close to home, but still make fascination journeys--of time and space and of the mind!  And also, while Darwin's ocean voyage was an episode of importance and made a convenient chapter in the book, it wouldn't have been possible to include all of the many expeditions led by Louis or Mary Leakey.

One thing I found very puzzling. On the chapters about human DNA analysis, he repeatedly said that there was no mixing of Neanderthal with modern human DNA. For example, he said this:
While this is yet more supporting evidence that Neanderthals did not mix with modern humans or contribute to modern human evolution....

 Very confusing. Possibly he is just pointing out that the latest waves of human progression out of African did not include any Neanderthal DNA. Which we believe is true. But misleadingly stated.

Wildly mildly amusing

 The Wilder Widows: Wilder Ever After
by Katherine Hastings

Good...but not as good as the first one. Was it just because I knew the four ladies and what to expect out of their reactions to the wild and crazy situations they found themselves in?  Or was it that I had unrealistic expectations that their adventures would be even wilder and crazier this time? Probably both. But it was still very good!

I'd still try reading a third one in the series, if there is one...

I was listening to an audiobook for this, and so I couldn't skip the endless repetition that hurts Ms. Hastings' writing. She stresses every point--for example, Sylvie doesn't just love her widowed friends, she loves them and loves them and loves them. That particular point must have been repeated fifty or sixty times. And her husband-to-be isn't just her "true love", her "soul mate", her "missing other half", but all those things in one--over and over again.  If all the repetition had been trimmed out of the narrative, it would have been a novella. A very short novella.

But some parts were very good, especially the cruise. I can't go into details, but I really enjoyed the concept and the battle between Alice and "Jessica Rabbit" over the handsome...[can't reveal]...person.

And I have to share one good quote:
    the best things in life are just outside of your comfort zone.

A library book that promised too much

A Big Little Life
by Dean Koontz

Well, darn. I so wanted to love this book...and I so did not. I guess I can forgive it in him, a successful novelist, to use his publishing credits to put out a memoir that read more like a sermon.  Is sermon the right word? No--it implies religion. More like an endless diatribe of shoulds and oughts and rhapsodies on why dogs are so great and we all ought to have one or twenty because they're so great and you just don't know how a dog can change your life until it does and then it does some more and....

Yeah, you get the idea?  This so-called "memoir" consisted of a few funny and touching episodes glued haphazardly together with a lot of sticky moralizing. I finished it, and I didn't hate it, but I have to confess I read very quickly at times. You might even say I was skimming.

There! I admit it. I had to skim through a lot of moral and maudlin lectures, to get to the gems of truth and dog wisdom that I longed for.

Mammoth's Tiny Trip to Georgetown Day 4 and Return

Thu 4/13 and Fri 4/14

Ed's cold was a little better, but I still chose to stay put and just take lots of walks. Molly and I didn't return to "the trail" but we just repeated our Tuesday jog (walking this time) around the day use area. It was nice. And then we bird watched a lot, but no birds showed themselves.

Later Edward joined us at Pappadeaux for dinner. Note to me: the blackened catfish with red beans and rice is wonderful. Of course, everything I've ever eaten at Pappadeaux was wonderful except for one time they added a skewer of extremely overdone shrimp. But everything else.

 

Return

It ended up being a nice place, the COE park in Georgetown. Crowded, especially for a Thursday night. Full of Christmas lights. We both had colds by the end and weren't sad to leave.