Play Book Tag discussion

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History - Elizabeth Kolbert

4 stars

The Sixth Extinction makes the case that we are currently in the midst of a sixth major extinction event (there have been five previous events in the history of life on the planet) that is mainly driven by human factors. The author examines previous events and their causes and highlights modern extinctions and their causes.

I have studied conservation biology so many of the concepts and examples in the book were not new to me. However, I think the author does a good job highlighting the issues and the history for those that are not already familiar with them. I agree with others, that the way the book was organized was not as clear as it could be and that it jumped around a bit. I thought the best part of the book was the stories of the scientists studying the issues. She does a great job of showing what it is like being a scientist in the field and the kinds of evidence they have for humans being a major factor in extinction and climate change. These are not politically motivated people with an agenda. They are people that have dedicated their lives to studying the world and the changes occurring. I also think she does a good job highlighting the history of scientific theory regarding evolution and extinction. I believe that this shows that scientific consensus can change, but that it takes a whole lot of evidence for it to do so.

This book was also on my listopia list!

Solid review for a helpful book to get more people attuned to the big picture and its composition from stories of threatened species all around us. I appreciated the compressed history of discovery about all the other great extinctions and the way the science winnowed through.

I just read this and enjoyed it very much. Also reading a good "companion" book. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. It actually uses past and present civilizations as examples and then relates it to a bigger scale of the whole earth and there is hope as proved by some societies, that we can avoid a sixth extinction but it will require some major changes and cooperation. Very interesting.

I thought I'd already had this on my tbr. After Jason's recent review I double checked, and to my surprise, it wasn't there! I've since added it!

Jason wrote: "I just read this and enjoyed it very much. Also reading a good "companion" book. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. It actually uses past and present civilizations as examples and t..."

Jason - This sounds really interesting! I'll be looking out for your review.

I’d like to know at the end of the month, how many members of our group have read this particular book. Every now and then we have a book that sweeps up the month. So far, this one seems to be it.

Amy wrote: "I’d like to know at the end of the month, how many members of our group have read this particular book. Every now and then we have a book that sweeps up the month. So far, this one seems to be it."

I think Lab Girl may be a contender too.

For sure! That was the other popular pick. I remember when we had historical fiction and like 10 to 15 of us were reading A Gentleman in Moscow together. There was like review after review after review. Once in awhile we see that. I wonder if a bunch of people are reading Girls in Atomic City this month/Radium Girls. I feel like I've seen a little of that too.