Welcome to Litsy!

I‘d call this a fascinating but stressful read. It was a big library read on Libby a while ago, and I was intrigued enough to read it. It starts out with a pretty cool prehistory of North America, and half way through it quickly spirals into a distressing tirade of environmental destruction and needless cruelty as white colonists flood the scene. Indigenous perspectives are definitely missing in this book.

I‘m on the fence. Parts of this were intriguing and new to me, but much of what‘s covered wasn‘t. I was pretty invested in the prehistory sections but there‘s much we don‘t know about this period so I appreciate that Flores can‘t write about what we don‘t yet know. Heavily focused on the truly barbaric and heartbreaking history of humans massacring animals which I found hard to read. Hopefully we‘ve turned a corner. Audio isn‘t the best, low pick.

I think this book is largely about the pressures, from small to cataclysmic, that have impacted animal populations. The reason I‘m not sure is that I feel that the central thesis of this book got lost. It does contain some interesting facts, but mostly it‘s ground I‘ve found covered in other books. And the audiobook has some issues.

I had to stop because the audiobook reader began to attempt various bad British accents as direct quotes from historical figures began to appear, and I just couldn‘t take it seriously anymore.

repost of @CrowCAH:

#BLR24 #BigLibraryRead May 9-23, 2024

Unlimited downloads on #Libby!!!

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#BLR24 #BigLibraryRead

May 9-23, 2024

Unlimited downloads on #Libby!!!

Join the discussion: https://biglibraryread.com/

I love this man‘s way with the world.
MacFarlane delves into the feels to reveal our human interactions with landscape in a way that feels peaceful yet disturbing, like a mirage in the distance that indicates a tremor is coming.

#mondaymood #nature #naturalhistory #underground #anthropocene #beforeitstoolate

A bleak read. I was put off by his smugness—he criticizes climate activists from the sidelines. But the author redeems himself in the final chapters with his call to save and rely on what literature and philosophers have taught us as our species makes a life after the climatic collapse ahead.

The chapters about exactly how to define the Anthropocene gets sidetracked into humans doing badly at working in committees, but otherwise it's interesting stuff, if you can bear with the level of technical detail. I agree with the choice of the Orbis Spike for the start of the Anthropocene, and the suggestion to ditch/demote the Holocene. There's some interesting stuff on the way forward too; I want to read more about Universal Basic Income.

This book has been interesting in many ways, but it gets a little bogged down in describing exactly how the working committees for defining the Anthropocene function. I'd rather it stuck closer to the science rather than analysing the vagaries of definition by committee.