The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Award-winning writer, columnist, and journalists Carl Zimmer selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in 2022.
“What's most compelling about a scientific story is the way it challenges us to think about the concepts we take for granted,” writes guest editor Carl Zimmer in his introduction. The essays in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing probe at the ordinary and urge us to think more deeply about our place in the world around us. From a hopeful portrait of a future for people with Alzheimer’s disease, to a fascinating exploration of the rise of nearsightedness in children, to the heroic story of a herd of cows that evaded a hurricane, these selections reveal how science and nature shape our everyday lives. With tremendous intelligence, clarity, and insight, this anthology offers an expansive look at where we are and where we are headed.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023 includes JESSICA CAMILLE AGUIRRE • VANESSA GREGORY • SABRINA IMBLER FERRIS JABR • MARION RENAULT • ELIZABETH SVOBODA NATALIE WOLCHOVER • SARAH ZHANG and others
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New York Times columnist Zimmer (Life's Edge) brings together 20 captivating pieces of science journalism that find reason for hope amid despair. One among several essays focusing on Covid-19, Elizabeth Svoboda's "An Invisible Epidemic" discusses the guilt suffered by healthcare workers who feel they provided inadequate care for Covid patients as hospitals became overwhelmed. On the flip side, Maryn McKenna highlights a rare feel-good pandemic story, describing in "When COVID Came for Provincetown" how adherence to public health guidance and contact tracing curbed a July 2021 Covid wave in the Cape Cod town. Climate change also looms large among the entries, with Douglas Fox reporting in "The Coming Collapse" that the melting of Antarctica's Thwaites Ice Shelf is likely more imminent than previously thought, putting "the homes of at least twenty million US people" at risk of falling below sea level. More uplifting essays describe the efforts of scientists working to save such endangered species as California's marbled murrelets, the Poweshiek skipperling butterflies of the Midwest, and yellow-legged frogs in the Sierra Nevada. The contributors showcase science journalism's capacity to educate while entertaining, and the timely bent of the selections gives the collection a sense of urgency, as in Annie Lowrey's poignant reflection on suffering medical complications during her two pregnancies and the choices women and their doctors face in post-Roe America. Readers will be enthralled.
