Healthy Buildings

Joseph G. Allen and John D. Macomber Harvard Univ. Press (2020)

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us,” said Winston Churchill in 1943. This is even truer now; people in the United States spend 90% of their time indoors, note health scientist Joseph Allen and business-school lecturer John Macomber. Yet we read little about indoor air pollution. In 2018, the US secretary of education publicly rejected the idea of investing in school buildings rather than students — to the authors’ horror. Their detailed, important study is welcomed by architect Norman Foster. But it speaks to everyone.

Greenery

Tim Dee Jonathan Cape (2020)

Tim Dee is a lifelong birdwatcher and former radio producer. “I have tried to make as much of this book about the birds and other natural manifestations of the spring as I can,” he writes, “but it is, of course, also about me.” His peregrinations between Europe and Africa — often accompanied by his South African-born wife, ornithologist Claire Spottiswoode — are vividly informative about many migratory species, and alive with literary and historical allusions. But some personal digressions might strike readers as self-indulgent.

A Question of Power

Robert Bryce PublicAffairs (2020)

Electrification is often deemed one of humanity’s greatest engineering achievements. Yet it dates only from the 1880s: a mere eye-blink compared with hominins’ 400,000-year history of using fire, as Robert Bryce observes in his enlightening history. Moreover, three billion people still have little or no access to electricity. Although not optimistic about the potential for renewable sources such as wind to increase electricity production, Bryce predicts continuing advances in batteries, generators, lights, microchips and motors.

Salmon

Mark Kurlansky Patagonia (2020)

Salmon was eaten by Neanderthals in the Caucasus Mountains about 48,000 years ago. The name derives from the Latin salmo, meaning ‘leaper’; Roman legions in the Rhine Valley observed this fish jumping over rapids and waterfalls while migrating upriver to spawn. Today, because of dams and development, a mere 1.5 million live wild in the Atlantic Ocean — many fewer than in the Pacific. The survival of the Atlantic genus is “highly questionable”, notes Mark Kurlansky in his comprehensive history, complete with historical recipes.

Foot Work

Tansy E. Hoskins Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2020)

According to this pioneering, pugnacious study, our shoes “are the propulsion and the consequence of globalization”. In 2018, 24.2 billion pairs were manufactured, mostly in poor conditions, say industry experts interviewed by journalist Tansy Hoskins. Hazards include noxious fumes, toxic chemicals and poverty wages, as well as the suffering of animals intensively farmed for their hides. She proposes a move to plant-based, metal-free shoes made with non-toxic glues and dyes — and even, radically, “shoe libraries”.