Jill's comments (member since Dec 30, 2008)

Jill's comments from the Science and Inquiry group.

The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Working my hiney off. I work in the English department of a university and we're trying to get the spring semester over with and the summer semester started.

Marti wrote: "Ah, Bill Bryson. I read the first 350 pages on one lazy Saturday and then went into a panic that we were all going to die from asteroid strikes, Yellowstone erupting, and our own stupidity simulta..."

I felt the same thing about bears after reading A Walk in the Woods. ;)

I have to go with At the Water's Edge Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea, also by Carl Zimmer. Great book. :)

I'm currently reading it. It's my lunchtime book. So far it's been very good. I didn't have an opinion on the whole Pluto debate before reading the book, but with Tyson's (somewhat unjustified, at times) snark, I'm starting to be a Pluto sympathizer. Probably not his goal, so I'll have to wait and see where the book takes me. I'm a huge fan of Tyson (I've read Death by Black Hole and Origins), so I'm a bit surprised at my reaction.

I read it last year, but I'm looking forward to hearing what people thought of the book. :)

Hmmm...Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, perhaps? That's a book on the history of several sciences.

Yup. I recently decided to take part in a "I must not buy any more books" thread in The Next Best Book Club community. It started in late December. I've since failed to live up to it about...oooh...five, maybe six times?

I love buying books. I really wish I could read them through osmosis.

I'm a receptionist. The reason I am a receptionist is because I have not finished college. The reason I have not finished college is because I'll be damned if I know what to focus on. I'm interested in everything, especially the sciences, so I'm like a kitten distracted by shiny objects when it comes to focusing on one area for the time it would take to complete my undergraduate and then graduate degrees. My main area of interest is biology, especially evolutionary biology. But I'll read just about anything on any topic.

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm devoutly skeptical, so I don't suffer from the "so open minded that your brain falls out" syndrome.

Part of me wants to stay with the whole receptionist thing because it leaves my nights free to pursue whatever area of interest takes my fancy.

I've been paying attention to the goings-on in the group, I'm just not very chatty. But I'm here, and I'm rooting for Botany of Desire (I've already read The World Without Us).