Review by New York Times Review
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT LAKES, by Dan Egan. (Norton, $27.95.)Although climate change, population growth and invasive species are destabilizing the Great Lakes' wobbly ecosystem, Egan splices together history, science, reporting and personal experience into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative. THE GIFT: (Or, Techniques of the Body), by Barbara Browning. (Coffee House/Emily Books, paper, $15.95.) This smart, funny, heartbreaking and often sexy novel concerns an artist and professor of performance studies (like the author) engaged in a continuing art project that bears an uncertain resemblance to her life. MISS BURMA, by Charmaine Craig. (Grove, $26.) A character based on Craig's Jewish grandfather marries a woman who belongs to a non-Burmese ethnic minority, the Karen, in a novel that reimagines their extraordinary lives. Their mixed-race daughter becomes the "Miss Burma" of the title. Themes of identity, longing and trust are addressed over nearly 40 years of Burmese history. THE ALLURE OF BATTLE: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost, by Cathal J. Nolan. (Oxford University, $34.95.) A historian argues that focusing on battles is the wrong way to understand wars, because attrition is what almost always wins. This thoughtprovoking book suggests a new approach to military history. ERNEST HEMINGWAY: A Biography, by Mary V. Dearborn. (Knopf, $35.) A perceptive and tough-minded biographer, Dearborn is immune to the Hemingway legend, and concentrates instead on what formed him as a man and a writer. She skillfully covers an enormous range of rich material. MUSIC OF THE GHOSTS, by Vaddey Ratner. (Touchstone, $26.) This tenaciously melodic novel explores art and war as an orphaned Cambodian refugee travels from her new home in Minneapolis to the Buddhist temple where her father was raised by monks, hoping against hope that he is still alive. The author discerns the poetic even in brutal landscapes and histories. WHERE THE LINE IS DRAWN: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel- Palestine, by Raja Shehadeh. (New Press, $25.95.) In deeply honest and intense essays, Shehadeh, a civil rights lawyer who now lives in Ramallah, describes his psychological and physical crossings into Israel. THE WITCHFINDER'S SISTER, by Beth Underdown. (Ballantine, $28.) An English witchhunter caused more than a hundred women to be hanged in the 1640s. In this ominous, claustrophobic novel, Underdown imagines his pregnant, widowed sister, who sees the malignant forces at work but is powerless to resist. FEN: Stories, by Daisy Johnson. (Graywolf, paper, $16.) The stories in Johnson's debut collection explore the shape-shifting world of the Fens, flat, once flooded lands in the east of England. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 16, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* For 10 years, Egan, an award-winning reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, covered the Great Lakes. He now channels his findings about these five inland seas holding 20 percent of the earth's fresh water into a vivid, fascinating, and alarming chronicle of an epic clash between natural order and human chaos. Egan maps the unique geography that for millennia kept the Great Lakes in pristine and thriving isolation, a resplendent abundance that didn't inspire stewardship in the new, colonizing North Americans, but rather dreams of wealth from international shipping. Egan charts the engineering feats and failures of the Erie and Welland Canals and the Saint Lawrence Seaway, which were too small to handle the envisioned shipping boom, yet capacious enough to allow seafaring ships to traverse the Great Lakes, carelessly dumping ballast water, which Egan describes as mini-oceans teeming with voracious invasive species. He precisely and dramatically elucidates the rampages of the sea lamprey, alewife, and zebra and quagga mussels, as well as the debacle of stocking the Great Lakes with coho salmon, and the ravages of water pollution. The devastation of the Great Lakes ecosystem delivered severe economic hardships, and new threats are pending, including the dreaded Asian carp. Egan's in-depth investigation is crucial testimony to the dire consequences of our profligate abuse of precious earthly resources.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Egan, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, effectively calls attention to the inherent fragility of the Great Lakes in this thought-provoking investigation, providing a modern history of the lakes-Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior-and the problems that have plagued them. He takes readers "beneath the lakes' shimmering surface and illuminates an ongoing and unparalleled ecological unraveling." Egan starts the discussion by examining the 1950s construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks, canals, and channels connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Supporters had hoped landlocked cities such as Chicago and Cleveland would in time become global commercial ports rivaling New York City and Tokyo. Subsequent chapters deal with some of the project's unintended consequences. Non-native species began showing up in the Great Lakes. Zebra mussels, once found primarily in the Caspian and Black Sea basins, hitchhiked their way across the Atlantic in the ballast tanks of freighters. Able to fuse themselves to hard surfaces and grow "in wickedly sharp clusters," zebra mussels can clog pipes, cause significant damage to boats, and "suck the plankton-the life-out of the waters they invade." Egan highlights a range of issues that have affected these crucial waterways for decades. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Milwaukee Sentinel Journal's Egan, "beat reporter" on the Great Lakes since 2003, examines the ecological and economic havoc caused by invasive species and also considers problems such as fluctuating lake levels and future threats including water diversion schemes. He shows how big engineering, canal building in particular, opened the lakes to shipping but also swung open the "front" (e.g., the Saint Lawrence Seaway) and "back" (e.g., Chicago Canal system) doors to nonindigenous aquatic species. Some critters hitchhiked in the ballast tanks of ships; others were carried in by the currents or swam. Swamp draining and river dredging have played their own pernicious parts in "unstitching a delicate ecological web more than 10,000 years in the making." Egan offers some bold solutions to slow the damage (e.g., develop better ballast dis-infection systems, close the Saint Lawrence Seaway to ocean freighters, shut the Chicago Canal) but admits that obstacles such as the shipping lobby and foot-dragging politicians are formidable. Egan skillfully mixes science, history, and reportage to craft a compelling story. If, as he asserts, "the biggest threat to the Great Lakes right now is our own ignorance," then this book stands as important, timely mitigation. VERDICT This outstanding addition to science collections will appeal to general readers.-Robert -Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An alarming account of the "slow-motion catastrophe" facing the world's largest freshwater system.Based on 13 years of reporting for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this exhaustively detailed examination of the Great Lakes reveals the extent to which this 94,000-square-mile natural resource has been exploited for two centuries. The main culprits have been "over-fishing, over-polluting, and over-prioritizing navigation," writes Egan, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award. Combining scientific details, the stories of researchers investigating ecological crises, and interviews with people who live and work along the lakes, the author crafts an absorbing narrative of science and human folly. The St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks, canals, and channels leading to the Atlantic Ocean, which allows "noxious species" from foreign ports to enter the lakes through ballast water dumped by freighters, has been a central player. Biologically contaminated ballast water is "the worst kind of pollution," writes Egan. "It breeds." As a result, mussels and other invasive species have been devastating the ecosystem and traveling across the country to wreak harm in the West. At the same time, farm-fertilizer runoff has helped create "massive seasonal toxic algae blooms that are turning [Lake] Erie's water into something that seems impossible for a sea of its size: poison." The blooms contain "the seeds of a natural and public health disaster." While lengthy and often highly technical, Egan's sections on frustrating attempts to engineer the lakes by introducing predator fish species underscore the complexity of the challenge. The author also covers the threats posed by climate change and attempts by outsiders to divert lake waters for profit. He notes that the political will is lacking to reduce farm runoffs. The lakes could "heal on their own," if protected from new invasions and if the fish and mussels already present "find a new ecological balance." Not light reading but essential for policymakersand highly recommended for the 40 million people who rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
