The latest John Burroughs collection I have finished is the 1908 volume called Leaf and Tendril. This volume consists of reflections on science and natural history, including some discussions of evolution. I was amused to see that several of the topics were nearly identical to those in the Stephen Jay Gould collection I recently finished, as ( Read more... )

    The 31st book of my reading year is 31 years old. Stephen Jay Gould's collection of reflections on Natural History, entitled Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes bears up very well, despite its age.
     As always, when his name comes up, I will say that I miss Stephen Jay Gould. I avidly read his essays when he was alive, and got to see him in ( Read more... )

        My wife has been reading Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle to me during trips, and we finished it just as we approached the last exit from the highway, on Monday. I'd read it twice before (we used my old Doubleday Anchor edition, which still survives) but it had been decades ago.

When people ask me for good original books ( Read more... )