November 2020 list by Dan Berube
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Desert Notebooks
by Ben Ehrenreich
A National Magazine Award winner weaves together climate science, mythologies, nature writing and personal experiences to examine how the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment has led us to the brink of calamity.
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The Elements We Live By
by Anja Røyne
A physicist and award-winning author takes readers on a journey around the globe and through chemistry and physics to introduce them to the elemental building blocks of everything in the world, including iron, phosphorus, silicon and potassium.
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Fossil Men
by Kermit Pattison
Profiling remarkable contributing scientists from Tim White to Owen Lovejoy, a behind-the-scenes account of the 1994 discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4 million-year-old early human, explains how her fossil remains inform current understandings about human evolution.
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The Kindness of Strangers
by Michael E. McCullough
This book is about one of the great zoological wonders of the world. No, it's not about the tears of the elephant, the smile of the dolphin, or the politics of the chimpanzee. It is about a scrawny, brainy ape with the habit of helping strangers, at times even risking life and limb to do so.
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Lords of the Fly: Madness, Obsession, and the Hunt for the World Record Tarpon
by Monte Burke
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, something unique happened in the quiet little town on the west coast of Florida known as Homosassa. The best fly anglers in the world all gathered together to chase the same Holy Grail--the world record for the world's most glamorous and sought-after fly rod species, the tarpon.
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Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind
by Peter Godfrey-Smith
The philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith expands his inquiry to animals at large, investigating the evolution of subjective awareness with the assistance of the far flung species he has met undersea.
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The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World
by Sarah Stewart Johnson
A Georgetown University planetary scientist presents a deeply personal account of the search for life on Mars, tracing her own journey as a scientist while exploring the work of historical scientists and artists whose achievements were inspired by the planet.
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Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road
by Matthew B. Crawford
A celebration of open-road driving by the philosopher-mechanic author of Shop Class as Soulcraft explores the road trip as a technology-threatened but enduring path to human reliance, exploration and freedom.
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