9780393067989 |
(hardcover) |
039306798X |
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Searching... Penrose Library | Book | 551.5 L831A | Nonfiction | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
Air sustains the living. Every creature breathes to live, exchanging and changing the atmosphere. Water and dust spin and rise, make clouds and fall again, fertilizing the dirt. Twenty thousand fungal spores and half a million bacteria travel in a square foot of summer air. The chemical sense of aphids, the ultraviolet sight of swifts, a newborn's awareness of its mother's breast--all take place in the medium of air.
Ignorance of the air is costly. The artist Eva Hesse died of inhaling her fiberglass medium. Thousands were sickened after 9/11 by supposedly "safe" air. The African Sahel suffers drought in part because we fill the air with industrial dusts. With the passionate narrative style and wide-ranging erudition that have made William Bryant Logan's work a touchstone for nature lovers and environmentalists, Air is--like the contents of a bag of seaborne dust that Darwin collected aboard the Beagle--a treasure trove of discovery.
Author Notes
William Bryant Logan is a practicing arborist and the author of four acclaimed books on nature: Sprout Lands, Dirt, Oak, and Air. He is on the faculty of the New York Botanical Garden and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Air. It's the stuff (technical term) we breathe, the pest that messes a perfectly coiffed do, the force that uproots trees and destroys homes. In an ideal world, it's invisible, though dust, dirt, smog, spores, pollutants, and pollen do their best to announce its presence. Like much of the natural world, air is something humans have taken for granted, much to its, and our, peril. Experienced through quotidian occurrences such as cloud formations or catastrophic tragedies such as 9/11, the properties, tendencies, and abilities of air to affect the human condition are infinite in scope, breathtaking in power. Poetic, supple, and passionate, Logan writes with the learned insights of an art historian as he discusses the depiction of sky and clouds in medieval painting, then moves seamlessly into the realm of the meteorologist as he demystifies the data-gathering capabilities of weather balloons and satellites. For everyone who has wondered just how a 747 manages to get off the ground, luxuriated in the intoxicating aroma of a bed of roses, or marveled at a tropical sunset, Logan's meticulously researched and engagingly presented treatise is a breath of, well, fresh air.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist
Choice Review
Books about science written for laypersons are frequently dumbed down to the extent that they are almost useless, or they elevate readers, allowing them to dip briefly into the beauties and wonders of the natural world. As proven by his previous works, Dirt (1995) and Oak (CH, Jan'06, 43-2795), Logan (New York Botanical Garden) is a capable writer, and in his hands, Air literally soars. Short chapters, "Floating," "Spinning," "Flying," "Telling," "Calling," "Breathing," and "Shining," detail experiments, people, organisms, and places, all filled with wonder. The author's descriptions and explanations are accompanied by clean pen-and-ink drawings by artist Nora H. Logan as well as a handful of photographs and reproductions. Though not scientific enough to be used for formalized course work, Air nonetheless would be an inspiring gateway for rigorous study or an introduction for casual readers to the very world that surrounds them day in and day out, wherever they go. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates and general audiences. S. E. Brazer Salisbury University
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments | p. xi |
Introduction | p. 1 |
Floating | |
Darwin's Dust | p. 24 |
The Spore Sucker | p. 33 |
Where Fungi Are | p. 48 |
Splash, Fire, Blow, Fling | p. 50 |
The Ergot of the Rye | p. 59 |
Lifted, Lofted, and Living | p. 63 |
The Pollen Rain | p. 66 |
Invisible Cities | p. 71 |
Is the Furniture Poison? | p. 76 |
The Air after 9/11 | p. 82 |
Spinning | |
Weaving | p. 90 |
Vortices | p. 99 |
Ground Truth | p. 108 |
El Greco's Clouds | p. 115 |
The Big Mistake | p. 122 |
The Forecasters | p. 128 |
The Weather on D-Day | p. 139 |
Forcing | p. 146 |
The Winds | p. 152 |
Firestorm | p. 162 |
Flying | |
Dragged Aloft | p. 168 |
Saab in Flight | p. 171 |
The Common Crane | p. 174 |
Stall Practice | p. 181 |
The Bat, the Bee, the Bar-Headed Goose | p. 192 |
The Lee Wave | p. 201 |
The Wind Riders | p. 205 |
What Now? | p. 216 |
Telling | |
The Wilderness of Pheromones | p. 226 |
Mother and Child Communion | p. 233 |
Allure | p. 237 |
The Atmosphere of the Beloved | p. 243 |
Zooming In | p. 248 |
Aphids in the Invisible World | p. 255 |
The Bolas Spider | p. 258 |
Calling | |
What Is Sound? | p. 262 |
Parrot Duets | p. 267 |
Tfce Answered Question | p. 272 |
Nothing in It but What Goes through It | p. 277 |
Enchanted | p. 282 |
Sonata Form and Chaos | p. 289 |
The Aeolian Harp | p. 295 |
Breathing | |
The Tarpon's Breath | p. 300 |
Fenchel's Dance | p. 305 |
The Quantity of Breath | p. 312 |
Fogging the Mirror | p. 322 |
Shall These Bones Live? | p. 328 |
Shining | |
Why the Daytime Sky Is Light | p. 336 |
There Is Only One Sun | p. 338 |
The Sap Rising | p. 342 |
The Air Is a Slow Cold Flame | p. 348 |
Notes | p. 352 |
Bibliography | p. 370 |
Index | p. 385 |