A review by rbkegley
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2018 by Sam Kean, Tim Folger

5.0

The couple of dozen essays covering a wide variety of science and nature topics in this book never failed to inform or entertain. For example, one chapter examining the possible downsides of civilization contained this sentence: "In the other column, we would have the less good stuff, such as plague, war, slavery, social stratification, rule by mercilessly appropriating elites, and Simon Cowell." In this volume you'll see the dysfunctional EPA run by Scott Pruitt, find the anguish of a family discovering their cute 6 year old daughter is a clinically-diagnosed psychopath, sit with a group of women who are pioneering a new way of designing a breast pump, and be cheered up by President Barack Obama's essay arguing that the shift to renewable energy is both inevitable and unstoppable (which brings us back to the essay about Scott Pruitt.) Most of the essays are 15-18 pages or so at the maximum, making this a great bedtime reading volume. Highly recommended - I'm planning to seek out earlier volumes in the series.