There is a non-fiction reading group that meets monthly (mostly) on the first Monday of each month.  For April 3rd, we are continuing our discussion of “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us” by Ed Yong.

In “An Immense World”, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved.

In the past, the group has read a wide variety of non-fiction titles, ranging from science (Brief answers to the Big Questions by Steven Hawking), the natural world (What It’s Like to Be a Bird by David Allen Sibley, An Elephant in my Kitchen by Francoise Malby-Anthony), memoirs (Educated by Tara Westover, Becoming by Michelle Obama), and social issues (Caste, the Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein).

If you are interested in joining the group, contact craigmonroe@comcast.net and we will add you to the distribution list for voting and the Zoom link for the meeting.  All are welcome. 

Those involved in the group are sent a list of books with descriptions for consideration in future discussions.  We have multiple votes that can be used all for one book or spread out among several.  The book with the highest number of votes is chosen. 

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