BookOwl

4/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* The Deep Sky is a debut speculative science fiction whodunit by Yume Kitasei, although it is definitely about much more: climate change, environmentalism, extremist movements, space exploration, and the complicated relationships between best friends and those between parent and child. Asuka is one of 80 of an all-female crew selected to board a ship—the Phoenix —to a new world— “Planet X” —as Earth is in a full climate crisis. (One of Asuka’s most formative memories is spending time with her family in a tent camp in California because the old growth forests were on fire.) These future astronauts are expected to raise a generation of children about halfway through the journey to their new world. “They would sleep through the next 3,650 sunsets over this place. They would never stand here again. But then, that was the nature of time. You could never return to the same point, just a facsimile of it.” After being awakened from 10 years of cryogenic ...

  4/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* “With very few adult primary feathers coming in at the tips of its wings it could not fly yet, and eyed me angrily, not taking its orange glare away for a minute, like a gremlin that has not quite come into its full power but knows it won’t be long.” Yes, owls are gremlin-adjacent, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love them any less! (The above quote describes a baby Eagle Owl.) I have a feeling Miriam Darlington, author of The Wise Hours: A Journey into the Wild and Secret World of Owls, would agree with me. This book is both a love letter to owls and nature, as well as a memoir of a difficult time in Darlington’s life. I have been fascinated by owls since I was very young, and The Wise Hours was a fantastic homage to a raptor that historically has been a bad omen and today is somewhat more accepted by the general public. Not that people aren’t still somewhat superstitious, but owls are viewed in an increasingly positive rather than negative light. (I...

  *Spoiler alert!* 4/5 stars My heart already wants a sequel to The Mountain in the Sea , but my head says that maybe it's better as a stand-alone. This conflict will continue for some time, because I truly enjoyed The Mountain in the Sea . "That was one of the keys, Ha knew, to understanding them. That lack of control from the center, that feedback from limbs, that pure embodiment of mind. They were not trapped in a skull, controlling everything from behind a sheath of bone. They were free-flowing, through the entire body. Not a ladder--a ring. A neural ring moving signals from limb to limb to mind, back again. A distribution loop through the whole body. A whole consciousness that could become parts, and then whole again. A whole consciousness that could become parts, and then whole again. It was one of the many problems Ha felt she would have no time to solve." My co-worker read this book out of his fascination for the octopus. His review, plus the concept reminding me ...

    *Spoilers warning!* 4/5 stars This book was both difficult to read, but a necessary read at that.  Britt Wray is a researcher who works at the intersection between climate change and mental health. She tackles the very big elephant in the room of climate change, but also that elephant's less-noticed twin, mental health.  As someone who has survived a once-in-a-generation pandemic and is witnessing an ongoing climate crisis, Wray gave words to the complicated feelings of existential dread, anxiety, depression, and grief I had (have) watching all this unfold: eco-anxiety. (Although there are many alternative clinical names for "eco-anxiety," for clarity, I will stick with "eco-anxiety.") "Coping with eco-anxiety is an ongoing process; we toggle between distress over difficult information and states of resilience." In 2020 more than ever, I mourned the loss of "normal" life due to COVID-19 and what appeared to be a future of ...

It is time...for BookOwl to recommend books about owls! (Books and owls: always a winning combination!) Here are my reading recommendations, both fiction and nonfiction, featuring this fascinating bird of prey.  Wesley the Owl  by Stacy O'Brien Wesley the Owl  is a humorous and poignant story of Caltech biologist Stacey O'Brien taking in a baby barn owl with nerve damage in one wing. Thus begins a two-decade chronicle of Stacey raising the barn owl chick, Wesley, from baby to full-grown adult. It offers not only a moving personal journey from the caretaker's perspective, but an interesting look into barn owl development and the complications of taking on the responsibility of raising an owl that can't survive in the wild. Wesley has his own unique personality, and it was a treat as the reader to get to know this owl and follow his story from beginning to end. I'll admit, this one you need to read with a box of tissues. Owls of the Eastern Ice  by Jonathan C. Slaght ...