PositiveThe AtlanticMeticulously researched ... Wasik and Murphy’s book often makes for disturbing reading, so unflinchingly does it document humankind’s capacity for cruelty ... Although Wasik and Murphy share their subjects’ sympathies, they are admirably clear-eyed about their deficiencies, including some lamentable anti-science sentiments ... Aside from that brief afterword, though, Wasik and Murphy’s book is almost entirely a study of the past. Our Kindred Creatures would have benefited from a more thorough examination of how early animal-welfare campaigns still reverberate—or don’t—today.
Adam Nicolson
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewIlluminating ... [Nicolson] operates in a tradition pioneered by Annie Dillard and upheld by the likes of David Haskell — closely observing a discrete patch of earth (or sea) and taking it as his muse ... Not that he’s a passive watcher. Nicolson engineers his own pools in a Scottish bay, \'gardening the sea\' with crowbars and mortar, then evokes their tiny inhabitants in lovely detail. He’s fascinated by the adaptations that permit life in this \'Darwinian laboratory\' ... There’s brutality here, but also brilliance — anemones, despite literal brainlessness, adeptly size up their rivals — and astonishing tenderness ... The notion of dredging big truths from small pools isn’t novel ... But few writers have done it with Nicolson’s discursive erudition. He introduces a litany of scientists who have sought universality in tide pools, these accessible, self-contained aquariums ... Nicolson’s at his best when he’s focused on his precious littoral world. Here, even rocks have stories.
