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geekwayne's review against another edition
4.0
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction tackles a very huge subject. It's a big ambitious subject. I'm not sure the entire subject can be covered adequately in a single 320 page book, but author Annalee Newitz gives it a good shot.
The book is about the history of mass extinctions on our planet over a 4.5 billion year history. There have been dust storms, ice, gas clouds and volcanoes that have attempted to eradicate life on earth. This is the setup for the book. Author Newitz is proposing how humanity could go about surviving the next mass extinction event. From underground cities to the Jewish diaspora, there are solutions that could work well. Covering biohazards and asteroid strikes, there are many potential hazards, but they are covered in a positive easygoing fashion. The book finishes with what our eventual move out into the stars might look like.
As stated, it's a huge subject and at times it feels a little glossed over, but it's a good jumping off point for further study. The work reminded me a bit of the work of Mary Roach, and that's a compliment. I like accessibly written science works and this one succeeds in that area quite well. I liked the book when it was all said and done.
I was given a review copy of this book by Netgalley and Doubleday Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to read this fascinating book.
The book is about the history of mass extinctions on our planet over a 4.5 billion year history. There have been dust storms, ice, gas clouds and volcanoes that have attempted to eradicate life on earth. This is the setup for the book. Author Newitz is proposing how humanity could go about surviving the next mass extinction event. From underground cities to the Jewish diaspora, there are solutions that could work well. Covering biohazards and asteroid strikes, there are many potential hazards, but they are covered in a positive easygoing fashion. The book finishes with what our eventual move out into the stars might look like.
As stated, it's a huge subject and at times it feels a little glossed over, but it's a good jumping off point for further study. The work reminded me a bit of the work of Mary Roach, and that's a compliment. I like accessibly written science works and this one succeeds in that area quite well. I liked the book when it was all said and done.
I was given a review copy of this book by Netgalley and Doubleday Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to read this fascinating book.
littlefrank's review against another edition
I started this, but got too depressed so put it aside for now. Maybe I'll return when I feel a bit more optimistic. Let's get the Tories out first.
spookyjane's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
4.5
masha123's review against another edition
5.0
Gotta say as someone who reads a lot of SF but not a lot of nonfiction, I actually loved the coverage of our history
librarian_of_trantor's review against another edition
3.0
I really enjoyed the first parts of this book. She gave a good account of previous mass extinctions. And the chapter on the evolution, and near extinction of the human line was fascinating. The stories about how other species survived by scattering, adapting, and remembering were instructive. But the last part of the book, outlining some of the specific strategies that human might use to survive, was less interesting to me. But it might different for others. At one point Newitz says "...stories about how humans might live in the future - sometimes known as science fiction - may be among the most important survival tools we have." I am an avid science fiction reader. Most of the ideas in the last section were familiar from any number of science fiction stories I have read. For someone who had not already been exposed to those ideas it could be as interesting as the rest of the book. But it did not do much for me.
quietdomino's review against another edition
3.0
Please remind me next time I try to read a book like this: I am banned from reading more than one piece of writing about mass extinction per month. Otherwise the cheerfulness in our household is highly negatively influenced.
mattycakesbooks's review against another edition
2.0
This book felt like it had a theme forced on it, and then it tried to shoehorn other things into that theme. Like, she's a science reporter (and a good one at that), but maybe for your "adapt" chapter, talk about how humans have adapted to different worlds rather than the adaptability of cyanobacteria.
Overall, I feel bad giving it too low of a ranking, because I think she's a good science writer, and I see the seeds of a good idea here, but whether editors made it into something it shouldn't have been, or she just couldn't fill in the gaps like she needed, it didn't come together.
Overall, I feel bad giving it too low of a ranking, because I think she's a good science writer, and I see the seeds of a good idea here, but whether editors made it into something it shouldn't have been, or she just couldn't fill in the gaps like she needed, it didn't come together.