I’m just back from nine fabulous days in Maine and will start blogging about it tomorrow.

In the meantime, here is the remarkable book I listened to driving up and coming back in the car, read by the author. It is an unusual, revealing, and engaging read, written by the journalist at the science desk of NPR. It packs a lot in its short volume.

This is genre-bending reading, part memoir, part biography of David Star Jordan, part expose and social commentary, part existential philosophy by an atheist searching for the meaning of life in a world filled with entropy. She gets into taxonomy, eugenics, a murder mystery, the difficulties of classification of any kind, white male supremacy, genetic cleansing, queerness, how to overcome despair, and why we matter. It searches and finds answers in a very atypical and fresh way, with science as her guide.

I’m glad I listened to this well written book from a thinker coming at things from such a different perspective. You might be glad to have read Why Fish Don’t Exist too. (And if they don’t exist, what is a pescatarian and how can I be one?) I give this four stars.