Book 12 - Deborah Cadbury "The Dinosaur Hunters"

Deborah Cadbury "The Dinosaur Hunters : A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery Of The Prehistoric World" (Fourth Estate)







This material, despite its inherent interest could easily have been dull in the hands of another writer. Thankfully, Cadbury keeps it very interesting, by turning it into a sort of group biography. This is the birth of paleontology, as told through the life histories of William Buckland, Mary Anning, Gideon Mantell, Richard Owen, Thomas Henry Huxley, and more. I particularly liked the story of Mary Anning, from carpenter's daughter to a key figure in paleontology, but always disadvantaged due to her class and gender. She sketches all these characters in with great deftness, and one enjoys learning little things about them as we go from "undergroundology" to the first instance of dinomania.

A well written, accessible, engaging popular science history that would appeal to most readers; possibly a little light for those with more interest or knowledge in the subject or more academic/intellectual tastes.

Poems of The Week

Have not done a poem of the week for awhile so to make amends -

The poem i have chosen for this week is by my favourite Canadian author  and then ne by Sara Teasdale,



February

Poem by Margaret Atwood

Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It's his
way of telling whether or not I'm dead.
If I'm not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He'll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It's all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we'd do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it's love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You're the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.


Margaret Atwood






February Twilight

Poem by Sara Teasdale


I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
That saw what I could see--
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.


Sara Teasdale

Sunday Musical Selection - Mixed Bag

A selction of music doe this Sunday -

M.I.A - Borders

And here she is talking about her video fro Borders -

( More music here )