Waiting for Aphrodite: Journeys into the Time Before Bones

I like this memoir-style of writing about science - it puts the observer back in the picture, instead of pretending she doesn't exist. Waiting for Aphrodite is like an enriched field notebook - Hubbell starts out with the standard time, place and weather, but adds the story of how she came to be in Maine in her 60s, the kind of bicycle she rides to the beach, the geology of the northeastern coastline, and all sorts of other things which are fun to read. She goes on to a standard identification and cataloging of species found, which leads on a research flight of fancy from the Smithsonian to Brazil and back to Maine again.

In this book Hubbell writes one of the more lucid descriptions of evolution by natural selection, and also throws in show more one of the more compelling arguments for preserving biodiversity, all the while introducing the reader to a world of mussels and camel crickets and polychaetes and the people who study them. show less

This is an odd one for me to review. I loved the science portions of this book - Sue Hubbell is a very talented science writer. But, I found the biographical parts to be dragging. It might have been that Sue is writing from a recently retired persons standpoint - figuring out her future. Where I am just a decade into my career, with many years ahead of me.

The science is well researched. I learned a lot about invertebrates. This book also opened my eyes to just how little humanity knows about the world around them. In some of the creatures described, the only description in a scientific article is 50 years old and very inaccurate.

This book makes an excellent case for environmentalism. Not by pointing out all the bad things happening, but show more by showing that we know almost nothing about nature.

A very good read about a subject I know very little about. show less

I got up to about 3/4 the way through before I put this book down for greener pastures. Who knows...I may finish it one of these days as I usually don't like leaving books unfinished. It's full of information, but I was hoping for more of a A Country Year set in Maine. Instead, very few chapters deal with the creepy-crawlies in Maine--Hubbell travels all over the world to research invertebrates. Of course other interesting issues come up as well such as global warming, evolution, and taxonomy, but I was hoping for more context to her daily life like A Country Year's approach. For those primarily interested in little critters and don't necessarily need a whole lot of other plot to keep it moving, this book is more suited for you. I show more needed a little more to keep me going. One thing I can say from reading this book that I never would have even considered otherwise: INVERTEBRATES RULE! Strange, but true. show less

This is a fascinating and beautiful little book, like finding assorted jewels in the tidepool of life. A treasure for the study of both nature and human experience.