Peter Cashwell

but I need it now...I neeeeeeeeeed stuff. Pre-ordering is nice, and all, but I want total instant gratification.

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I don't normally pretend to be objective about books, but on this occasion I'm even less so: the author is an old friend and I'm married to one of the experts mentioned here in.

Cashwell writes most like Bill Bryson, if Bryson was an English teacher with the hobby of birding. The unifying theme here is lines that people draw to separate things, but how there's always ambiguity, whether between what we mean by male and female, or at the edge of extinction, or in the definition of species, or between genres. Really, he's interested in pretty much everything including driving, and art, and music. Even if, like me, you're not interested in spotting birds out in the middle of nowhere at dawn, you'll enjoy the book because it's entertaining and discursive and amusing. We've all read it at our house, or are planning to, now that a copy isn't being read by someone else.

Personal copy… (mer)

There's a passage early on that I think points to the heart of the book: "...all lines are imaginary, established only because human beings need them for purposes of division. It would be a mistake to pretend that merely because the line doesn't really exist, the differences on either side of it do not exist either." It's an intriguing thought. For better or for worse, our nature is to divide ourselves.

Peter Cashwell has composed series of related musings about all manner of boundaries, lines and divisions. The compilation also has a very personal feel to it, no doubt due to the frequent anecdotes from Mr. Cashwell's own life. And birding. The dude is into birding.

Along Those Lines is entertaining, informative and well-written. I recommend it for the non-fiction reader in your family.… (mer)