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Title: The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things by Hannah Holmes ISBN: 0-471-37743-0 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 20 July, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The little things mean so much
Comment: Dust. It's all around us in our daily lives. We brush it off the tabletop and sweep it with the broom. Holmes shows us that it's a lot more than that. It's the building blocks of the universe. It's a natural part of our lives - we each have our own individual dust clouds. Unlike Peanut's Pigpen, ours is usually not visible. Hannah Holmes has written a broad and surprisingly accessible book looking at the roles and dangers that dust plays in our lives. She is able to easily slide from the macro view of the universe to the micro view of dust mites without losing her audience. Dust rises from the most unexpected places - who would have though of the sea as a dust creator, yet spray allows the launching of salt particles into the air at a surprising rate. And penguins produce ammonia gas that condenses into small balls. Holmes writes, "By accidentally flying through penguin-poo dust in the making, Hubert and friends had caught the magical transition of gas to particle."
You will walk away from this book hopefully not fearing, but respecting dust for its role in our, and the planet's life. Holmes shows us that even the little mundane subjects of day to day life, can have profound effects upon us all.
Rating: 5
Summary: vivid and fascinating exploration of the tiny world
Comment: Hannah Holmes has produced a gem of a science book which reads like a good novel. Her mastery of descriptive prose and imaginative narrations of the exploration and discovery of the microscopic universe we inhabit will draw the reader into the excitement of the scientists who study the very tiny stuff of which everything is made. This story is clearly very thoughtfully researched and woven together from a great range of scientific sources. As Holmes attempts to confront some still uncertain and controversial ideas about the role of dust in our individual health and the global health of our planet, she takes a reasonably balanced approach, leaving the reader with the sense of wonder and curiosity and thirst for greater understanding which must drive the scientists she writes about. I look forward to more such enlightening and entertaining books from this author.
I agree with some other reviewers who comment that some illustrations, especially those referenced in the website bibliography at the end of the book, would make the book even more enjoyable. But that does not detract from its five-star standing, in my view. Having the referenced web pages gathered on a central website to make them easier to explore might also be nice, although that, of course, goes beyond the scope of a "hard copy" paper publication.
This is the sort of story which could be well adapted to an online, hyperlinked multimedia presentation, using some of these remarkable resources to expand the story and spark further individual exploration, perhaps published on CD-ROM along with the book. Perhaps the publishers would consider such. I think such a product could expand the audience that would enjoy this story, to make it more accessible to the nintendo generation and others who have been brainwashed by the educational system into thinking natural science is boring and impossible to understand.
We need more creative and imaginative science writers like Hanna Holmes!
Rating: 4
Summary: Often fascinating, sometimes dull.
Comment: Writing is excellent, although occasionally a certain "breathlessness" in tone becomes wearying. There are a number of unresolved scientific questions, such as the cause of asthma, and Holmes does a particularly good job with these. The material on dust and weather is fascinating. While Holmes' sympathies are clear, she remains objective. Despite Holmes' best efforts, however, the underlying material is not uniformly interesting. For example, there are some interesting and surprising causes of dust, and causes of ill health, but Holmes' comprehensive treatment also, necessarily, touches on the well known, amplifying with statistics and so on that just aren't that interesting.
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Title: Dust: A History of the Small and the Invisible by Joseph A. Amato, Jeffrey Burton Russell ISBN: 0520231953 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 05 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Einstein's Luck: The Truth Behind Some of the Greatest Scientific Discoveries by John Waller ISBN: 0198607199 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: For Love of Insects : by Thomas Eisner ISBN: 0674011813 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Tales from the Underground: A Natural History of Subterranean Life by David W. Wolfe ISBN: 0738206792 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Why Things Break : Understanding the World by the Way It Comes Apart by MARK EBERHART ISBN: 1400047609 Publisher: Harmony Books Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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