Thor Hanson
Nature
Like The Triumph of Seeds, Feathers is a beautifully-written book about a fascinating, easy-to-overlook subject. Feathers are absurdly, wonderfully complex. Just the description of how they grow--the cells behave like fans in a sports stadium doing the Wave--is mind-boggling. Hanson peels back multiple layers of featherology: evolution, physics, natural history, looks, physics. Woven in and out of this are a nice series of personal touches and anecdotes, anchoring the book in time and place. If you have any interest at all in looking more deeply into nature, this is a book to latch onto.
Like The Triumph of Seeds, Feathers is a beautifully-written book about a fascinating, easy-to-overlook subject. Feathers are absurdly, wonderfully complex. Just the description of how they grow--the cells behave like fans in a sports stadium doing the Wave--is mind-boggling. Hanson peels back multiple layers of featherology: evolution, physics, natural history, looks, physics. Woven in and out of this are a nice series of personal touches and anecdotes, anchoring the book in time and place. If you have any interest at all in looking more deeply into nature, this is a book to latch onto.
I read this when it came out and liked it a great deal.
ReplyDeleteI remember that you liked it. Anything in particular you'd single out?
DeleteI'm going to want to read his next one, too.