Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb (4 stars)

This is an excellent piece of non-fiction that has me convinced that we need the help of beavers to rescue North American ecology. I came to this book after listening to a fascinating interview with Ben by Chris Morgan on KUOW's podcast The Wild.

the geological mass we call North America might, as Frances Backhouse put it, more accurately be termed Beaverland

Ben Goldfarb tells the story of beavers using a cast of interesting characters and anecdotes that makes it very easy reading. I think the only downside of the novel is that I was fairly convinced about how important beavers are early on, and things started to feel a little repetitive by the end.

I find myself looking at streams and rivers in a whole new light: have they been eroded down to bedrock, do they meander? What do the banks look like. And I'm now super curious about every piece of possible beaver infrastructure I come across.

Beavers, the animal that doubles as an ecosystem, are ecological and hydrological Swiss Army knives, capable, in the right circumstances, of tackling just about any landscape-scale problem you might confront. Trying to mitigate floods or improve water quality? There’s a beaver for that. Hoping to capture more water for agriculture in the face of climate change? Add a beaver. Concerned about sedimentation, salmon populations, wildfire? Take two families of beaver and check back in a year.

Here's to nature's hydrological engineers!

4 stars.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple (4 stars)

Every Seattle resident should read this one. I'm giving it 4 stars because of all the great Seattle tidbits it dropped, if I lived somewhere else, it would be a 3.5.

I had no idea who Cliff was until my wife started talking about him one day shortly after we moved here and referring to him as "my weather guy". I've since read many an excited blog post by Cliff about various storm events. I agree with the sentiment.

We sat in silence. Then, at ten of four, we had to turn the radio back on because Fridays at ten of four is when we listen to our favorite person ever, Cliff Mass. If you don’t know who Cliff Mass is, well, he’s this thing me and Mom have, this awesome weather geek who loves weather so much you have no choice but to love him in return.

Yes. Two opposing grids have not been kind to intersection sanity in this city:

Take five-way intersections. The first time Bernadette commented on the abundance of five-way intersections in Seattle, it seemed perfectly relevant.

Favourite quote:

Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle. They’re everywhere, and even if they don’t get in your way, you can’t help but build up a kind of antipathy toward them.

Very entertaining. I actually quite enjoyed the descriptions of the husband geek-rockstar on the Microsoft connector and the over eager admin.

4 stars.