lit_stacks's Reviews (579)

This book is not really about the statues. You could read a news article about the statues and get roughly the same amount of information. What this book is instead about is Mitch Landrieu. Which is fine, his story is told in an interesting and compelling way, but if you are looking for a book about the statues, this is not the book.

“You see nothing, my friend,” he replied quickly. “As usual, nothing at all! It is incredible—but there it is.”

This book is written by the curator of marine mammal fossils at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, so it is understandably fossil-centric. But oddly the best parts of the book are when Pyenson is waxing poetic about living whales (and not dissecting them on a whaling boat). I did want to hear more about his whale chin discovery, but I also didn’t want to hear more about whaling. I’m just not sure that killing whales is worth the scientific advances. And Pyenson gives mixed signals on the topic. He seems to clearly state that orcas shouldn’t be in tanks but says that some of our best info comes from captive dolphins.

A very interesting historical fiction novel about the first black police officers in Atlanta that combines my two favorite genres: history and mystery. Boggs and Smith hunt down the killer of a young black woman with the help of one of the more “progressive” white officers. The book explains the tropes of what white allyship looks like, the futility of thinking things are “better” here or now, and the fact that the more things change the more they stay the same.