How Birds Evolve: What Science Reveals About Their Origin, Lives & Diversity

Book Review

Author and biologist Douglas J. Futuyma takes readers through the evolutionary history of birds in his book How Birds Evolve. Futuyma embarked on a journey resulting in his evolving into a serious expert on birds. Thousands of fellow bird watchers are at different levels of interest, involvement and personal goals in this interesting hobby. Many are perfectly happy to put birdseed in decorative feeders placed strategically in their backyard and watch the chickadees, doves and hummingbirds fly in and out. It really does not matter whether it’s a Black-capped Chickadee versus a Carolina Chickadee; a Mourning Dove versus a Rock Dove; or an Allen’s hummingbird versus a Green-breasted Mango hummingbird.

Beirut 2020: Diary of the Collapse

Book Review

Lebanon is a theoretical country, cobbled together from shards of the Ottoman Empire following World War I. Europe’s Great Powers hoped the different religions jumbled within its borders would work together to create a cosmopolitan nation. Unfortunately, Lebanon’s oligarchs and their family clans more often have colluded than cooperated. Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese-American poet born to a Maronite Christian family, worried about her native land’s survival. “What will remain of your Lebanon after a century?” she wrote in the 1920s.
Beirut 2020: Diary of the Collapse by Charif Majdalani is an extended lamentation that documents the unending challenges of living in a failed state that are brought into sharp relief by a massive explosion on August 4, 2020 that destroyed the city’s port as well as many of the capital’s historic neighborhoods.

Traveling the World with an Architect’s Eye

Book Review

Australian Harry Seidler (1923-2006) is revered in the architecture world as an articulate exponent of modernism and an inveterate photographer who traveled the world with a Leica filled with Kodachrome film recording architectural marvels. After attending Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, he apprenticed for German Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School, and Hungarian architect and furniture designer Marcel Breuer.

Life Affirming Travel Through the Shadow Lands of Death

Book Review

The greatest journey in life is the one we all take to the grave. It’s a trip where getting there is all of the fun. Along the road travelers encounter luxury hotels, memorable dinners, historic athletic contests and a bucket list of exciting experiences. For those who invest wisely and are prudent with their savings, the last leg of life can be filled with glamping safaris and Disney cruises with the grand children. Yet travel writers rarely ponder humanity’s final steps toward the ultimate threshold.

DK Top 10 Guides

Book Review

Top 10 2016 DK Travel Guides     By David DeVoss We live in a digital age. Bookstores are closing; newspapers are shrinking. Print, our betters tell us, is dead. Of course, a lot of things have been pronounced dead by experts. Back in 1966, Time Magazine declared God dead. Yet He/She/It continues to float…