Bewilderment

By Richard Powers,

Book cover of Bewilderment

Book description

The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He's also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Bewilderment as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This novel intrigued me because of Robin, a young boy who cares deeply about endangered animals. Powers uses the child as a device to make readers think about our earth and its inhabitants. I did the same with the character in my novel. Both children agonize over how to make adults pay attention to the crisis we face.

While the plot centers on a father’s intense devotion to his struggling son, Powers succeeds in portraying nature’s magnificence and its increasing fragility. I am in awe of his ability to create such a page-turning plot in a message-driven book.

This novel was short-listed for the UK Booker prize and should have won. It isn’t directly about genetics, but it is about autistic spectrum disorder, which is one of the most highly heritable developmental disorders. It’s a touching story of a somewhat autistic astrobiologist, recently widowed, who is learning to live with and love his 9-year-old son who is autistic. The father takes his son on imaginary trips to other planets with weird and wonderful life forms.   

From Robert's list on genetics and psychology.

A Diary in the Age of Water

By Nina Munteanu,

Book cover of A Diary in the Age of Water

Nina Munteanu Author Of Darwin's Paradox

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Writer Ecologist Mother Teacher Explorer

Nina's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

This climate fiction novel follows four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. Told mostly through a diary and drawing on scientific observation and personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Her gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto in the grips of severe water scarcity.

Single mother and limnologist Lynna witnesses disturbing events as she works for the powerful international utility CanadaCorp. Fearing for the welfare of her rebellious teenage daughter, Lynna sets in motion a series of events that tumble out of her control with calamitous consequence. The novel explores identity, relationship, and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing.

A Diary in the Age of Water

By Nina Munteanu,

What is this book about?

Centuries from now, in a post-climate change dying boreal forest of what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, discovers a diary that may provide her with the answers to her yearning for Earth’s past—to the Age of Water, when the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity in hatred—events that have plagued her nightly in dreams. Looking for answers to this holocaust—and disturbed by her macabre longing for connection to the Water Twins—Kyo is led to the diary of a limnologist from the time just prior to the destruction. This gritty memoir describes a…


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