The Library of the Uncommons

Peter W. Flint wants to read Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social …

Peter W. Flint wants to read The long way to a small, angry planet by Becky Chambers

The long way to a small, angry planet (Paperback, 2015, Hodder & Stoughton)

The long way to a small, angry planet by Becky Chambers

When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen …

Peter W. Flint wants to read Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Light From Uncommon Stars (Hardcover, 2021, Tor Books)

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in this defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San …

Peter W. Flint wants to read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set …

Peter W. Flint set a goal to read 10 books in 2024

Peter W. Flint rated Becoming animal: 4 stars

Becoming animal (Paperback, 2010, Vintage Books)

Becoming animal by David Abram

A startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature. As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable …

Peter W. Flint finished reading Becoming animal by David Abram

A startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature. As the climate …

An exploration of human consciousness, thought, and language through the lens of sensation and experience. Overly wordy at times and moving into the fantastical at others. It still manages to make valid points about how interpreting the world from a wilder paradigm enriches our contribution to other beings and each other.

Peter W. Flint finished reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See (Hardcover, 2014, Scribner)

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about …

I cried several times.

Peter W. Flint finished reading Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David J. Epstein

Range (Hardcover, 2019, Riverhead Books)

What's the most effective path to success in any domain? It's not what you think. …

Excellent synopsis of the relationship between general knowledge and cross-discipline contributions.

Peter W. Flint rated A Gentleman in Moscow: 5 stars

A Gentleman in Moscow (Paperback, 2016, Random House Large Print)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow is a 2016 novel by Amor Towles. It is his second novel, published five years after …

Peter W. Flint quoted A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow is a 2016 novel by Amor Towles. It is his second …

“I’ll tell you what is convenient,” he said after a moment. “To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that mattered to me most.”

— A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Page 352)

The concept of wealth is one of the major themes and I think this quote captures the essence of that exploration.

Peter W. Flint quoted Becoming animal by David Abram

A startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature. As the climate …

Each creature’s experience is unique, to be sure, yet this is not at all because an autonomous awareness is held inside its particular body or brain. Sentience is born of the ongoing encounter, the contact, the tension and entwinement between each body and the breathing world that surrounds it.

— Becoming animal by David Abram (Page 126)

This chapter invokes elements of Gaia theory and Alan Watts’ “observer-participancy” principle, but brings it into a primal form. Essentially, Abrams is arguing that mind and ecology are functionally the same, a thinking mind is intertwined and embedded in the physical laws from which it emerged. The feeling of separateness, of thinking over, is an illusion.

Peter W. Flint reviewed Seeing Trees by Nancy Ross Hugo

Seeing Trees (2011, Timber Press, Incorporated)

Great premise, fails to deliver

2 stars

The overall premise is enticing. The author’s stated intent is to invite the reader to engage with the detailed phenology of plants using trees and shrubs commonly found in the cultivated landscape. In reality this amounts to high quality photographs of buds, flowers, and bark, fluffed up with personal anecdotes and old-white-people landscape history. The bulk of useful information is contained in the introduction, which abstracts plant parts and lifecycle into digestible chunks and facilitates a more detailed understanding of the life of the plant. However, what one assumes to be more detailed descriptions of the idiosyncrasies of individual plants turn out to be personal commentary about life in the South, of which the relevance of the featured tree is unclear. I do recommend going to the bookstore and flipping through the pages to see the photos, but as a perennial reference for beginners in horticulture or naturalism, this book …

The overall premise is enticing. The author’s stated intent is to invite the reader to engage with the detailed phenology of plants using trees and shrubs commonly found in the cultivated landscape. In reality this amounts to high quality photographs of buds, flowers, and bark, fluffed up with personal anecdotes and old-white-people landscape history. The bulk of useful information is contained in the introduction, which abstracts plant parts and lifecycle into digestible chunks and facilitates a more detailed understanding of the life of the plant. However, what one assumes to be more detailed descriptions of the idiosyncrasies of individual plants turn out to be personal commentary about life in the South, of which the relevance of the featured tree is unclear. I do recommend going to the bookstore and flipping through the pages to see the photos, but as a perennial reference for beginners in horticulture or naturalism, this book is pretty useless.

Peter W. Flint finished reading Seeing Trees by Nancy Ross Hugo

Great photos, poor content for its stated purpose.

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