Saturday, March 05, 2005

Sunny Saturday...at least for now

Just now back in from an early morning walk around the neighborhood with a requisite stop at Starbucks on the way back to the apartment. It's a beautiful, sunny morning, but that's supposed to change with rain rolling in later on today. There's even been mention of a possible thunderstorm which would be great. A true sign that spring is on the way.

The coffee is most needed as I was up far too late for my own good last night. Though I had planned on going to bed early, I got carried away with the ever-addictive joy of reading. Last weekend I picked up Thomas Eisner's book "For The Love of Insects" and over the last week have read a page or two here and there as time allowed. Not much free time for reading this week. So last night I caught up. The statement that "I'll just finish this chapter" turned into "Well..let me start on the next" and before long all sense of time was lost and I was deep into the book. Only reluctantly did I put it down and eventually fell off to sleep.

"For The Love of Insects" is quite the remarkable book and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in natural history. It's a lively, well-written account of Eisner's discoveries as a chemical ecologist working on insects. But it's so much more than just a book about bugs. While insects do play the central role, much of the reserach Eisner has done over the years deals with insect chemcial defense, so across the pages of the book march a host of other players from the natural world, including birds, frogs, spiders, lizards, and so on. So essentially what you have is a multi-act drama of evolutionary adapations of predator/prey relationships borne out both in the laboratory and natural setting. Eisner's profound knowledge of and deep passion for the insect world serve as the sweeping orchestral accompaniment to this drama which heightens the experiene for the reader and fosters in them a greater appreciation for intricate workings of the natural world.

1 comment:

Wanting said...

neato...I'll check it out...