Reviewed by annieb123 on
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2022 is a well curated collection of essays and articles from the world of science from 2021/22 edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Released 1st Nov 2022 by HarperCollins on their Mariner Books imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is an interesting and very well rounded anthology full of layman accessible popular science articles. The selection is impressively broad, generally eschewing the most popular periodicals with the largest reach in favor of the lesser known and potentially overlooked authors and subjects. Although the NYT and National Geographic have entries here, so also do Hakai, Knowable, and Atmos.
There is a lot of content devoted (rightfully) to the dystopian loss of habitat and climate change, but I was gratified to see that not -all- the articles were strictly bad news; there are a broad selection of essays on the anus as a functional organ and what roles it plays in various organisms which I found endlessly entertaining and informative, one about slime molds, beavers as natural engineers, and many more (33 total by my rough count). All of them were well written and engaging.
There is also an erudite and well written introduction by the guest editor (Dr. Johnson) as well as a foreword by series editor Jaime Green.
Five stars. Accessible and interesting. Recommended for fans of science writing as well as a good choice for public or school library acquisition. Impressively egalitarian vetting and choice of material included.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
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- 6 November, 2022: Reviewed