For the Weekly Geeks challenge, I’m supposed to write about my experiences linking to other book bloggers’ reviews! Well, I really enjoyed the sense of community it fostered, and while it was a bit of a hassle to retroactively add links, it was definitely worth it. My only negative experience was that I had been keeping a notepad file of links to my reviews to leave in comments of other blogs, and my computer ate the file. I was so disenheartened, I never got around to visiting a bunch of the blogs that joined later in the week and leaving my links there. I hope I linked to everyone who left comments! I also tried to link to everyone who had a ping-back link to my post, but I didn’t go out searching for links (because I would have wasted hours that way!). All in all, I think I’ll keep the policy going-I just hope that people will leave their links. Oh, and speaking of science books (that’s what I’m reviewing again today), I just wanted point out this great resource for finding future science reads. It’s a wiki developed by the sponsor of the Science Book challenge, with book notes that include a short summary and a really neat ratings chart. And if you’ve read a science book, you can submit a note for inclusion. Now, on to the reviews!

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a review for my Planet Earth challenge! This is because John McPhee almost killed me. Ok, maybe not literally, but for the past couple of months, Annals of the Former World, a 900-ish page book that combines five formerly published books of his all about American geography has been my downfall. Finally, after having it stare at me malevolently with a bookmark about fifty pages into the second book, I realised it just wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I just decided to acknowledge my completion of the first book, Basin and Range, and call it a day.

As you might have gathered, I didn’t enjoy Basin and Range too much. I really expected too. My mom’s taking her second geology class right now, and she’s a very enthusiastic student, so I’ve been hearing about geology for months. And when I was researching books for my geology section of the challenge, it seemed like McPhee was the golden author. So I was so excited to find Annals of the Former World in the library! I brought it home, curled up with it, and really enjoyed the ‘narrative table of contents.’ Then the actual book started…and McPhee was throwing around technical geology terms left and right, and I thought “Ok, there’s going to be a bit of a learning curve. I can handle this.” But then I realised I had to force myself to pick it up, and my attempts to convince myself it was interesting (hey! I’ll be driving this highway later this year! it’s good to know these things!) were failing. Honestly, I don’t remember much of what I’ve read, because when I’m reading involuntarily, I think my eyes and brain glaze over. So it wasn’t the book for me, but you should try it too, since so many people really like McPhee. But perhaps don’t go for the omnibus right off the bat…

Gabrielle Walker’s Snowball Earth on the other hand, is geology done right! She looks at one specific geological theory (and a somewhat controversial one that has detractors as well as supporters) and the main scientists behind it. It’s a combination mini-biography, travelogue (she goes to Australia, Nigeria, the Artic, etc.), and interesting science! The Snowball Earth theory suggests that at some point in the earth’s history, its surface was completely frozen. I’m not going to go into all of the details (because I had to return the book to the library), but the eventual thawing could have caused an important ‘outbreak’ of life! Walker is very talented at explaining things in a way that makes sense, without glossing over the important details and issues, and her descriptions are incredible (for a taste of her writing, check out my favourite passages below). I found Snowball Earth compulsively readable: I read it all in a single sitting (it’s not a super-long book), wanting to find out what all of these interesting people were doing. I’d highly, highly recommend this one to everyone.

Favourite Passages (all from Snowball Earth)
Though sea ice is gray when it first forms, it whitens year by year as its brine drains back into the sea. Even gray young ice is often dusted with white snow. But a frozen ocean is far from monochrome. Gashes of open seawater, created as the pack ice is ripped apart by wind and weather, expose the deep turquoise roots of the floating sea ice. And the dark ocean reflects in the clouds, streaking them the color or a bruise. “Water sky,” this is called, and polar sailors have long used it as a clue for where to point their ship next as they navigate perilously through the pack.

Paul wound his way hurriedly down the canyon on the sandy river floor, dodging the rocks and branches swept there by an old flash flood. Up ahead his lights picked out a thick black log, maybe nine feet long, lying in the sand. The Toyota could handle that, no problem. But at the last minute Paul swerved around it, striking what might have been a glancing blow. The log had seemed to twitch as he passed.
He was intrigued. He slowly backed up, craning his neck to see the scene illuminated by his white taillights. The log had vanished. No, it was standing up, and heading toward the vehicle, fast. It was chest high, four a half feet above the ground, just about the height of the Toyota’s open window. Now Paul could see that it had curious yellow rings the length of its body. It was a zebra snake, a western barred spitting cobra. It had spread its black hood angrily around its face and ot looked unnervingly in the wing mirror. Paul remembers wanting to laugh. This was like the T. rex scene that appeared in Jurassic Park, reflected above a warning that “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”
But he also knew that zebra snakes were deadly. The toxin would quickly paralyze his muscles, and shut down his breathing. He had no serum as an antidote, since serum has to be kept cool and Paul had no refrigerator. Without immediate artificial respiration, he would suffocate. If someone pumped his lungs with their own air constantly while he was rushed back along these twisting canyons, in the dark, out along the bush tracks to the nearest village and then on and on to a town that perhaps had a hospital, he might survive without too much brain damage. Zebra snakes don’t even need to bite you. They are called spitting cobras for a reason. Normally they’re excessively shy, but when aroused they can spit their cytotoxic venom six feet or more. This one was clearly aroused, and Paul hastily rolled up his window.
The snake book in the passenger door of Paul’s Toyota contains many lurid pictures. Alongside the featured snakes from southern Africa, you can see the human effects of their venom: rotten arms, legs and hands, attached to bodies with pained, hopeless faces; limbs and torsos with puncture points surrounded by skin taht is black, blue, yellow, sowllen, pitted and blotched. “Don’t read the snake book,” Paul says to every newcomer, to first-time field workers and naive young graduate students. “It will only give you nightmares.” Everybody immediately opens the book and stares.
You are told, when you first come to Namibia, never to unroll your sleeping bag until the very last minute, just before you climb in. Each morning, when you wriggle out of the baf, you immediately bind it into a tight bundle. Everybody knows about the sleeping bag unrolled at Khorixas rest camp by an unwary student, about the zebra snake that slid inside during the day and was there waiting for him when he retired to his tent. He survived, just, since he was relatively close to town. Then you’re camping out in the remoter parts of the Namibian desert, you don’t need to hear this story twice.