This Week, I'm Reading...

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert

I didn’t realize, when I picked up this copy of The Sixth Extinction over the winter, that this book is already 10 years old, which led me to wonder whether it’s out of date. But first, an explanation. “The sixth extinction” was a phrase first used by the herpetologists David Wake and Vance Vredenburg, who, alarmed by the rate of extinction of amphibians, questioned whether we were experiencing the sixth mass extinction in the history of the Earth. The extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period is widely understood now to have been caused by an asteroid hitting the Yucatán peninsula. But that wasn’t even the biggest mass extinction in geological history. That dubious honor goes to the end of the Permian period 250 million years ago, which “came perilously close to emptying the earth out altogether.” Each chapter in The Sixth Extinction is part natural science, part personal travel narrative, as Kolbert explores particular species, some of them already extinct and some of them in danger of becoming so. I mentioned on Sunday that I chose this as my airplane reading for a weekend trip, but it was a lot to take in. It’s the kind of book that’s probably best read one chapter at a time. I’m currently reading a chapter on invasive species, which begins with the threat of white-nose fungus to several species of bats, including Myotis lucifugus. To explore this issue, Kolbert straps on snowshoes and descends deep into a cave in upstate New York with some bat experts. She’s always turning up someplace new, doing something adventurous like snorkeling to underwater vents or tromping across a field of coral in the dark on a remote island to collect water samples. I could read more about any of these adventures, but it’s always on to the next one! As for how accurate this 2014 book is, I learned that a 10th anniversary edition was published this year with a new epilogue, which I’m hoping I can get my hands on. According to the publisher’s website, “In the ten years since the book was originally published, evidence of the Sixth Extinction has continued to mount, making its message more urgent than ever.” Need I add this? The “asteroid” this time is us.

What are you reading this week? Let us know in the comments section below!