Book Reading List 2026

• Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves - Author: Peter Noble
• Democracy Awakening Notes on the State of America - Author: Heather Cox Richardson
• The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in a Changing West - Author: Gary Ferguson
• The Overstory - Author: Richard Powers
• A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters - Author: Andrew H. Knoll
• Of Mice and Men - Author: John Steinbeck
• Animal Farm - Author: George Orwell
• The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl - Author: Timothy Egan
• This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism and Corruption are Ruining the American West - Author: Christopher Ketcham
• Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization - Author: Bill McKibben
• Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet - Author: Kate Marvel 
• A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future - Authors: David Attenborough, Jonnie Hughes
• A World Appears - A Journey into Consciousness - Author: Michael Pollan
• Between the World and Me - Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening - Author: Douglas Brinkley

Book Review - Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves

Title: Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves
Author: Michael J. Benton
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I loved this book. My main reason for reading it was to better understand how life has evolved on Earth. According to the book, Earth has experienced at least five major mass extinctions. Four of those extinctions were caused mainly by volcanic activity. The fifth extinction that wiped out about 80 percent of all species, including the dinosaurs, was caused by an asteroid about 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) wide, resulting in the Chicxulub crater about 200 km (120 mi) wide. While extinction events are not common, it appears they are a natural part of how life evolved on Earth. Many scientists believe that Earth is now experiencing a human caused "sixth extinction" event (Holocene or Anthropocene extinction) due to habitat destruction, climate change, pollution and over exploitation of natural resources. On a geologic time scale, humans are just a blip and at the rate we're going, may end up going extinct just like the billions of other species before us. 

Description (Audible): Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near collapse of life on Earth, illuminates our current dilemmas in exquisite detail.

Beginning with the oldest, Professor Michael J. Benton takes us through the "big five" die outs: the Late Ordovician, which set the evolution of the first animals on an entirely new course; the Late Devonian, apparently brought on by global warming; the cataclysmic End-Permian, also known as the Great Dying, which wiped out over 90 percent of all life on Earth; the newly discovered Carnian Pluvial Event; and the End-Cretaceous asteroid. He examines how global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification, erupting volcanoes, and meteorite impact have affected conditions on Earth, and how life survived, adapted, and evolved.

In Extinctions, listeners will learn about revolutionary new tools used to uncover ancient extinction events and processes in forensic detail, and how scientists are improving our understanding of the deep past. New research allows us to link long-ago upheavals to crises in our current age, the Anthropocene, with important consequences for us all.

Review: Paleontolgical Society

Rally - Banners Over I-5 September 4, 2026

September 4, 2026 - Vancouver, WA - Banners Over I-5 Rally on the Evergreen bridge over I-5 Freeway. Wake up America! If you’re not outraged with what’s happening, you’re not paying attention! Vote them out!

SOUND ON🎧

CLICK HERE ☝