March 1, 2016 Booklist 35 www.booklistonline.com
from Unilever and B corporations to bitcoin.
—Barbara Jacobs
Science
Baby Birds: An Artist Looks into
the Nest.
By Julie Zickefoose.
Apr. 2016. 384p. illus. Houghton, $28 (9780544206700).
598.072.
We’ve all been taught not to disturb birds’
nests, and as a result, few of us have ever seen
birds while they are still in their infancy. In
addition, no artist has
ever depicted the development of nesting
birds until now. In this
marvelous new work,
wildlife rehabilitator,
artist, and author (The
Bluebird Effect, 2012)
Zickefoose rectifies
this woeful lack by producing beautifully
rendered watercolors and drawings illustrating the enormous changes nestling songbirds
undergo every day as they grow up. As Zickefoose says, “there’s magic in the nest,” and the
immediacy of her mostly drawn-from-life images will grab readers and immerse them into
the nestlings’ daily reinvention. She worked
with 17 species, including the well-known
(eastern bluebird, cardinal, house sparrow,
mourning dove) and the less-obvious (indigo
bunting, eastern phoebe, prothonotary warbler, yellow-billed cuckoo). Accompanying
the daily portraits are delightful observations
of each chick, musings on their differing personalities, and the occasional quotation from
a scientific paper. Grab this one for the illustrations, then get pulled in by the prose.
—Nancy Bent
Locally Laid: How We Built a Plucky,
Industry-Changing Egg Farm—from
Scratch.
By Lucie B. Amundsen.
Mar. 2016. 320p. Avery, $26 (9781594634222). 630.
Lucie Amundsen had already changed her life
for her husband, Jason. They left their unsold
Minneapolis house and moved into a rectory in
Duluth, in which they shared their bathroom
with parishioners. She gave up a writing and
editing career and was going back to school
when they took on a small flock of five back-
yard hens that had not yet laid an egg. Then
Jason announced he wanted to start a farm—
specifically, a commercial-scale, pasture-raised
poultry ranch. The Amundsens’ quest to create
the Locally Laid Egg Company was definitely
not a smooth one, entailing acquiring two-
thousand commercial chickens without regular
chicken instincts, trying to keep them alive
and laying through a harsh Duluth winter, and
learning to actually run a business that falls
somewhere between backyard and factory ag-
riculture. The personal journeys of the entire
family hold as many highs and lows as the pro-
fessional journey, but Lucie and Jason face it
with humor, tears, and the strength of a true
farming family. —Kristi Chadwick
The Universe in Your Hand: A
Journey through Space, Time and
Beyond.
By Christophe Galfard.
Mar. 2016. 384p. Flatiron, $27.99 (9781250069528). 520.
High-power mathematics has served as the
auger for scientists burrowing deep into the atom, the
wings for scientists soaring
into deep space. Yet Galfard
dispenses with mathematical
formulas in this foray into
modern physics, making a
lively imagination the only
portal necessary for general
readers hungry for the intellectual excitement
of astral and atomic exploration. In a series
of mind-stretching gedankenexperiments—
thought experiments—readers plunge into the
hydrogen atom in a water molecule, there to
contemplate the quantum fields that sustain all
matter, then shoot out beyond supernovas to
ponder the strangely opaque boundary of space-time. At times vertiginous and even frightening
(Who is ready to ride white-hot plasma into a
black hole?), these probes into the universe will
thrill readers but rarely perplex them. Galfard’s
accessible narrative draws scientific revelations
out of both fantastic daydreams about wormholes and ordinary encounters with objects as
mundane as a refrigerator magnet. Yet even as
he initiates readers into the central concepts of
twenty-first-century science, Galfard promises
more, showing readers that current paradigms
break down at key points (such as the birth of
space-time), so emboldening daring thinkers
(such as string theorists) willing to explore new
horizons. Galfard leaves exhilarated readers
eager to share in the forthcoming discoveries.
—Bryce Christensen
Technology
Drive! Henry Ford, George Selden, and
the Race to Invent the Auto Age.
By Lawrence Goldstone.
May 2016. 400p. Ballantine, $28 (9780553394184);
e-book, $13.99 (9780553394191). 629.222.
George Selden’s name is largely forgotten to-
day, but it was he, rather than Henry Ford, who
created the automobile. Ford, however, popu-
larized it, as he did assembly-line production,
which he is wrongly credited for inventing.
This book contains the great names in auto-
motive history—the Dodge brothers, Barney
Oldfield, all the French (they seemed, until
Ford, to lead the Americans in development of
the vehicle)—and it is fascinating to read just
how distant the events of about a century ago
are. Traffic lights were introduced, highways
paved, paints improved, engines developed,
and the car itself moved from its primitive
beginnings to the familiar sight it quickly be-
came. Ford himself, largely absent in the early
pages of this book, was not a nice fellow, but
after a series of court cases (which he lost) he
emerges as the pioneer of the automobile as we
know it. An engaging new take on the history
of technological innovation. —Mark Levine
No Dream Is Too High: Life Lessons from
a Man Who Walked on the Moon.
By Buzz Aldrin and Ken Abraham.
Apr. 2016. 224p. National Geographic, $22
(9781426216497). 650.1.
We all knew who was the first man to walk
on the moon, but how about the second
man? That would be, of course, Buzz Aldrin.
Now a very busy 86 years young, Aldrin
(Mission to Mars, 2013) here presents a baker’s dozen rules to live by. Among them are
keep your mind open to possibilities, choose
your heroes wisely, write your own epitaph,
maintain your spirit of adventure, practice
respect for all people, and do what you believe is right even when others disagree.
Some lessons reveal Aldrin’s sense of humor
(second comes right after first, he reminds
us). We learn that his mother’s maiden name
was Moon and that he enjoys movies about
space. He writes about what it was like to
walk on the moon and comments on the
future of the space program. Although there
is nothing terribly surprising here, fans of
the Apollo space program, readers who admire Aldrin, and those who are just learning
The Handy Anatomy Answer Book,
Second Edition
978-1-57859-542-6
The Handy English Grammar Answer Book
978-1-57859-520-4
The Handy Hockey Answer Book
978-1-57859-513-6
The Handy Technology Answer Book
978-1-57859-563-1
The UFO Dossier: 100 Years of Government
Secrets, Conspiracies and Cover Ups
978-1-57859-564-8
Distributed by Legato Publishers Group
Over 25 Years of
Answering Questions
and Exploring the
Unexplained
