From the Bookshelf of Never too Late to Read Classics…

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson

Start date: April 1, 2023

Finish date: April 30, 2023

Discussion: Non-Fiction Classics

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What Members Thought

Jun 13, 2016 Chrissie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fauna, classics, audible-us, favorites, flora, 2016-read, medical, science

This is a classic. It has not lost its validity. It has an important global message still today, 54 years after publication. Everyone should read this at least once.

This reads as a horror story, but it is true.

-The scientific studies are numerous, clear and to the point.
-The demise of habitats and living creatures are lyrically depicted.
-The author expertly alternates between poetic expression and scientific accuracy.
-Eloquent prose.

That’s the essential.

Carson shows through carefully identif ...more

135 likes · Like · see review

Jan 15, 2020 Manybooks rated it liked it

Shelves: book-reviews, bad-industry, ecology

Indeed and both content and writing style wise, Rachel Carson’s seminal and oh so important for the environmental movement Silent Spring generally reads both flowingly and with graceful, understated (but also emotionally textually dense) eloquence (but yes and sadly, after more than fifty years since the 1964 publication of Silent Sprung, there not only still remains very much to be done with regard to stopping or at least severely limiting overusing pesticides but it also does seem that in rece Indeed and both content and writing style wise, Rachel Carson’s seminal and oh so important for the environmental movement Silent Spring generally reads both flowingly and with graceful, understated (but also emotionally textually dense) eloquence (but yes and sadly, after more than fifty years since the 1964 publication of Silent Sprung, there not only still remains very much to be done with regard to stopping or at least severely limiting overusing pesticides but it also does seem that in recent years, it certainly is beginning to feel as though we are in fact moving not really forwards but actually rather backwards, that we are often drowning out Rachel Carson’s important messages and admonishments and catering to special interest groups like farming and industrial lobbies and indeed not in any manner further reducing but sadly increasing pesticide and herbicide production and usage once again).

However, as much as I do wholeheartedly applaud Rachel Carson for having penned Silent Spring and that yes indeed, this book really was a major wake-up call with regard to especially how DDT was thinning and making fragile bird eggs and thus severely and lastingly reducing the ability for birds to successfully procreate and reproduce, as an academic, I do have to (even if contritely and with a bit of guilt) point out that Rachel Carson NOT using any foot or endnotes in her text, in the narrative of Silent Spring and just listing her diverse sources by chapter and as far as I can tell a bit haphazardly at that, this certainly does not make for easy supplemental research. And yes, even figuring out from which of the listed sources Rachel Carson has gleaned her information and where in her text, where in Silent Spring this is all located is in my opinion and very much frustratingly rendered considerably more difficult without foot or endnotes (not to mention that Silent Spring also does not contain an all encompassing and separate bibliography either, just these rather difficult to weed through source lists at the end of each chapter, a to and for me academic shortcoming that while it does not in any manner diminish Silent Spring’s and Rachel Carson’s message, it has definitely frustrated me on an academic and university/college research level). ...more

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