The Questioning Librarian

The list of books I need to read, as always, grows only longer, but this is not a bad thing. This morning, Carl Zimmer noted in his blog  the oddities of the Cambrian, some of the strangest forms preserved in a fossil record that already contains some very strange organisms, from feathered dinosaurs to brontotheres  and the ancestors of humans. These organisms, many of them preserved in the Burgess Shale (famously covered in the work Wonderful Life by the late Steven Jay Gould), represent creatures so fantastical that scientists have trouble connecting them to existing forms of life. Zimmer linked to that book, along with a relatively new book called The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity , available here  from the publisher but also from other booksellers. Of course, given my enthusiasm for weird dead animals, I immediately added it to my to-read list, but the significant cost of the work, and the fact that I've recently indulged myself with a n...

I first read the Harry Potter series over a year ago--a little behind the ball, but still better late than never. After that I watched all the movies with friends, and recently I have been slowly re-reading the series as a present to myself for finishing my Master's program. I generally don't read a book again once I've read it with only the rarest of exceptions; I've revisited Tolkien's works several times along with the Redwall books by the late Brian Jacques, and I'm preparing to re-read the massive Wheel of Time epic now that the final volume is out. With so many books out there to read, and so little time in which to read them, I usually cannot justify re-reading a work unless it is of exceptionally high quality. The Harry Potter series definitely falls into that category for me, and I've enjoyed rereading the series in no small part because this time, since I know how it all ends, I can take my time and read them slowly, soaking up details that I miss...