Ponderings of a Scientist

Just completed The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson.  Written circa 1945 (second edition circa 1955), this is one of Rachel’s first (if not her first) full length book, previous to her famous Silent Spring.  If you’re interested in the Ocean you should check it out.  If I had to describe the book in one sentence:  Poetically written prose describing the oceans’ history, geology, geography, oceanography, bathymetry and marine biology.  Its interesting to read something so old and see how much (how little) our understandings have changed.  Rachel, even prior to getting DDT induced cancer, was an environmentailist and a forward thinker.  Many of her ideas and concerns are still relavent today.

I’d give this book a 6 (if you dig ocean science) on the 1-10 scale.  I think I would have appreciated it more with about 1/3 of each chapter cut.  I enjoyed the topics, but she was a bit long winded at parts.  I’m a facts sort of person, I don’t tend to enjoy books full of descriptors (thats why I like the fast paced mystery genre) and this was a bit to poetic for me in parts.