Ruminate Magazine is a wonderful publication I’ve recently discovered, which explores the creative and contemplative aspects of life through fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art.
I’m honored that a book review of mine was accepted as a guest post on the Ruminate Blog! You can check out my review of The Sixth Extinction there today. I hope you’ll have a look, and come back here to let me know what you think.
The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
What a wonderful essay and review. I, too, have put off reading The Sixth Extinction. But just the other day something made me pull it off the shelf – I knew I’d been delaying, and I wondered how long I could put it off. Your review has been the nudge I need, may as well face it. I do love your conclusions, which offer some hope, but we have to change and we have work to do. I especially like your words about how our separation is a kind of death, and spreads death – and also that you do remind us of love and its power – it’s a way for us to take action, so to speak, if only to change our mindset – which can then inspire us to act.
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The only hope to be found is the difficult kind which can carry us through death and resurrection. But noting that the earth has died and been resurrected several times can perhaps give us some courage. What price Megatheriums now?
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Excellent review! I haven’t read the book, but I, like you, have often thought about how we humans have the option to change our behavior. For example, hunting animals for sport or meat eating in light of factory farming is so often excused because human ancestors hunted and ate meat. But we now live in an age where we don’t HAVE to do either to live a heathy life – we have so many options now. We can change this and maybe we will…as you point out, how this all plays out will be resolved in a future we can only now try to anticipate.
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The only way I can face the future is to hold on to this amazing fact, that we can and do consciously transform ourselves, choosing to act out of love. Because it has to be a free choice, that doesn’t always happen — but when it does, we can change the world.
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Congratulations, Lory. Stellar review! If only we could eliminate the arrogance of our species. I’m amazed that most people actually believe that humans are “more important” because we have a high level of problem solving and communication skills. The truth, as I see it, is that we are but one species in an interdependent world. If only we had more sense of stewardship and less sense of entitlement…
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Yes, stewardship is the key. What makes us special is not that we are smart enough to dominate and overpower the rest of the world, but that we are the only species that is able to consciously recognize our interdependence, and act upon that knowledge. We are curiously slow at comprehending this, but steps are being made.
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Congratulations! This book has been on my reading list, and you remind me that we must keep reading about these issues as well as lament them.
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I’ve been surprised at the comfort I find in reading about difficult topics. The power of the human mind to embrace such truths is the only place from which change can come, and connecting to that is the first step for me.
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Oooh! Congratulations!!
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Thanks Erica!
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Congratulations! What a fascinating topic, I’ll have to keep an eye out for this book.
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I highly recommend it.
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I enjoyed your review, Lory. Although this book seems to paint a bleak picture of our future, it is the science involved in understanding these past cycles and learning more about the history of our planet, and in the process more about our future, that sounds interesting to me.
I watched an A&E documentary on how the earth was made and they went into the different cycles of near total extinction either through a global freeze or intense volcanic activity and the life that evolved from those periods– this was prior to the age of man, though. But it was so interesting to learn about the numerous changes our planet has gone through to bring us to our present state. It’s almost amazing that we are here at all.
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It’s extremely amazing, and if we can reawaken that sense of wonder, maybe we won’t be so determined to destroy ourselves. That’s the hope I came away with from this book.
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Great review. Congrats! I’ll have to read The Sixth Extinction now!. This subject is so scary but there is hope! The power of taking action and love!
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You can’t take action if you don’t know anything. So let’s expand our knowledge, and love.
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Beautiful review, Lory, thank you. I will add this one to my list. I commented over on Ruminate that while I don’t stick my head in the sand about climate change, I haven’t read anything beyond a magazine article here and there about the havoc being wrecked. I plan on starting to read about our oceans this summer and will likely include this book as part of my overall knowledge of the natural world.
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This will be an excellent addition to your list — informative and highly readable.
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