The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2017: A Stellar Anthology of Essays Balancing Research with Humanity―Selected by Hope Jahren

by Hope Jahren (Editor), Tim Folger

A renowned scientist and the best-selling author of Lab Girl, Hope Jahren selects the year's top science and nature writing from writers who balance research with humanity and in the process uncover riveting stories of discovery across disciplines.

The art of saving relics / Sarah Everts --
Altered tastes / Maria Konnikova --
The secrets of the wave pilots / Kim Tingley --
The billion-year wave / Nicola Twilley --
The case for leaving city rats alone / Becca Cudmore --
The battle for Virunga / Robert Draper --
The new harpoon / Tom Kizzia --
A song of ice / Elizabeth Kolbert --
Something uneasy in the Los Angeles air / Adrian Glick Kudler --
Dark science / Omar Mouallem --
The parks of tomorrow / Michelle Nijhuis --
How factory farms play chicken with antibiotics / Tom Philpott --
The invisible catastrophe / Nathaniel Rich --
The devil is in the details / Christopher Solomon --
The physics pioneer who walked away from it all / Sally Davies --
The DIY scientist, the Olympian, and the mutated gene / David Epstein --
Inside the breakthrough starshot mission to Alpha Centauri / Ann Finkbeiner --
He fell in love with his good student --
Then fired her for it / Azeen Ghorayshi --
The woman who might find us another Earth / Chris Jones --
Out here, no one can hear you scream / Katrhryn Joyce --
The amateur cloud society that (sort of) rattled the scientific community / Jon Mooallem --
The man who gave himself away / Michael Regnier --
Unfriendly climate / Sonia Smith --
It's time these ancient women scientists get their due / Emily Temple-Wood

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Essays, Nature, Science Nature, Environment, Anthologies

324 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2017

About the author

HOPE JAHREN is a teacher, scientist, and book lover living in Oslo, Norway. Recognized as one Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Jahren is the recipient of three Fulbright Awards and was named one of the Brilliant 10 by Popular Science magazine in 2005. She is the author of two works of nonfiction: The Story of More and Lab Girl, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Adventures of Mary Jane is her first work of fiction.

Reviews

[Reading Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I liked Lab Girl, but her taste is, well, not mine. I expect a science expert to curate a collection that's a little more rigorous and hard to find than Buzzfeed news?

The writing in many of the essays is very blah--Jahren herself is a much better writer than 90% of the articles she selects. Climate change is VASTLY overrepresented in the 'science', crowding out most other sciences and math. The essays about the lives of scientists tries to be progressive, but it's basically all about being a woman scientist, rather than a scientist...who is also a woman. I mean, no real surprise considering Jahren's own work and agenda, but...it got very samey.

I normally love this series, but this was a thumbs down from me. I'll have to see who the editor is next year BEFORE I buy--I got much more fun from hunting down the Other Recommended list by series editor Tim Folger in the book's last pages. I wish he'd take the helm.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of essays selected by Hope Jahren, not only about the science but about the lives and events behind the scientists. Of particular importance are two essays about the sexual harassment that women suffer in the sciences (apparently it is hard to conduct one’s self in an appropriate professional manner ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, which is completely not hard at all, ugh why are men. Don’t bother @ing me). Highly recommend.

[Josh Caporale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy reading these essays that are featured in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, as I did during 2016, and while I saw more standouts then, there were still some standouts in this collection that caught my attention and made me think.

Some of the standouts included:

"How Factory Farms Play Chicken with Antibiotics" by Tom Philpott- In this essay, Philpott explores the detrimental impact of the meat industry and the use of antibiotics. There is some hope, though, as companies are making efforts to do away with using antibiotics in chicken that is being bred and made into food. It will take time for chicken to be completely antibiotic-free, though, and if the same efforts were made with pork and beef, it would take even more time.

"The Case for Leaving City Rats Alone" by Becca Cudmore- Cudmore makes an effort to debunk the idea that city rats are burdens and carry a great deal of diseases in the general human population.

"The Woman Who Might Find Us Another Earth" by Chris Jones- This essay is about Sara Seager and her research and discoveries in finding an Earthlike planet that can provide for and house living species. A great deal of detail is placed on Seager as well.

"The Amateur Cloud Society That (Sort of) Rattled the Scientific Community" by Jon Mooallem- In this essay, we learn about Gavin Pretor-Pinney, who put together a magazine that he saw as a second thought and was "a magazine about nothing," but a fascination with clouds led to further research that would make him a serious figure in the world of science.

"The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene" by David Epstein- The most fascinating article in the 2017 collection of The Best American Science and Nature Writing was a piece about Jill Viles, who spent her life with muscular dystrophy and how she saw symptoms of hers and a particular gene of hers in an Olympic sprinter by the name of Priscilla Lopes-Schliep. While Lopes-Schliep seemed like a complete opposite, the results to Viles research turn out to be mindblowing. The same can be said about DIY research Viles engaged in which she learned about a heart condition her father happened to have, but know nothing about.

This collection as explores the impact of sexual harassment in the field of science and nature, in particular the articles "He Fell in Love with His Grad Student- Then Fired Her for It" by Azeen Ghorayshi and "Out Here, No One Can Hear You Scream" by Kathryn Joyce. Both of these essays show heinous accounts of sexual desire getting into the way of forward progress or the ability to examine what science and nature has to offer. Works on this topic are also examined in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2018.

I feel as if I get a great sense of everything going on when it comes to science and nature when reading these essays and the works in here provide a great sense of substance and backing to them, especially the works I highlighted as standouts. I would like to see some more standouts in the 2018 issue and perhaps the 2019 issue if I get to it this year, but if the editors are able to collect the best articles from a great deal of American publications throughout the year, there is certainly going to be someone that responds with wonder and is filled with contemporary knowledge.

[Chunyang Ding · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic collection.

I've always felt it slightly odd to review these BASNW collections - after all, am I supposed to be critiquing the individual stories, or the editor's discretion of assembling and collating them? - but here, both stand out. Science communication is so much more than "just reporting the facts", but in understanding and interpreting them as well. It is naive to claim that science is purely divorced from society, when it can be so much more richly interpreted as a discipline that very much responds to the social environment. And here, Hope Jahren's collection of science and nature writing, shines brightest.

These stories - written in the calendar year of 2016, the hottest year on record - are completely imbued with the personalities and impacts of the science being described. Climate is, of course, frequently referred to (the cover of the book features several wind turbines in silhouette), but not always exactly in the way that you would expect. In "The New Harpoon", there is the exploration of climate change on arctic communities, and how the elders of that community are seeking the best ways to preserve their own independence while resisting the loss of their heritage. "The Invisible Catastrophe", written almost as a murder/legal mystery, explores how a community grapples with an unseen, choking environmental catastrophe. "Dark Science", which I greatly appreciated for the way the author inserts himself in for a good amount of humor, touches on the concept of light pollution as yet another human-made environmental hazard, and a near and dear subject to my own heart.

Yet the other stories in this book are still filled to the brim with the human connection. My favorite piece, "The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene" is written in a way that I would not have even originally considered as piece of scicomm. From its gripping introduction of the main subject, as receiving a packet of confounding genetic information in the main, to the small snippets of Jill's life that illuminate her personality, there is just so much of this article that I hope to strive towards in the future. What was incredible to me about this piece is how much genetic information it revealed throughout the process, yet how seamless this scientific knowledge was embedded in the overall narrative.

Of course, there could only be one heroine in the story - Jill and her persistence in research and noticing details, especially where other experts were eager to dismiss. But the way that David Epstein gives space for this story to exist is fantastic. One of the most jaw-dropping parts of the story is when Jill discovers the Emergy-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy independently in her university's library. Her continued probing of this question leads her to bring home those papers to her house, where her father stumbles across them. In that fateful moment, she admits that she exhibits the three muscular symptoms common to those who suffer from this dystrophy, but her father drops the bombshell that he has been having the heart issues described of other patients.

The pacing of that entire section, along with the detail, makes this particular article stand out. If you want a contrasting presentation of that exact scene, check out this write-up from the Des Moines Register. Although it is certainly targeted at a very different audience, the effect and tension in the writing is just so drastically different.

In any case. I would very whole-heartedly recommend this collection to anyone who wants to be a science communicator, or just those who would be interested in reading more good stories. In no particular order of preference, here were my favorites in the collection.

* The Art of Saving Relics
* The Case for Leaving City Rats Alone
* The New Harpoon
* Dark Science
* The Invisible Catastrophe
* The Physics Pioneer Who Walked Away from It All
* The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene
* The Man Who Gave Himself Away
* Unfriendly Climate
* He Fell in Love with His Grad Student - Then Fired Her for It

[Alexia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a fair number in this series, and I usually give them four stars since the collection tends to have about the same number of hits and misses.

This was almost all hits. What a selection, I couldn't be more impressed.

[Teri-K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book because I'd read Lab Girl, by the editor, and really liked it. I was interested in seeing what type of science articles she'd choose, and I have to say she did a great job. This type of book is always a mixed bag and I consider myself happy if I like about half the articles. In this one I really liked almost all of them.

I started by reading in section 3 - The "Real Life" of Scientists - and the articles were fantastic. There was plenty of science here, but also the human element, and I zipped through. Then I went to the first section Emergent Fields. I wasn't sure what I'd think of these, some of the topics sounded too esoteric for me, The Secrets of the Wave Pilots and The Billion-Year Wave, in particular. But they were fascinating. I put the middle section of the book last, because I knew Changing Land and Resources whould have some sad and depressing material in it. It did, and I also I felt a couple of the articles in this section were longer than they needed to be. Still, I enjoyed most of them, too.

All in all, this is an excellent book to stretch your mind and expose yourself to things you don't know anything about, as well as catching up on research in fields you enjoy. I know it was published in 2017, but there's still a lot of interesting reading here for anyone interested in science and nature. Jahrens, as writer or editor, has a good grasp on how to make science interesting for lay people without dumbing it down too far. Recommended.

[Rift Vegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoy this series, but this collection was a little bit meh. I didn't hate any of the articles, but out of the 24, I only had one "smiley face" and 2 "check marks". The Check Marks were for The Case for Leaving Rats Alone, nice because I like rats! and The DIY Scientist, The Olympian and the Mutated Gene, just an interesting story about two people who meet to talk about this gene that did opposite things to them!

The smiley face was for Nicola Twilley’s The Billion-Year Wave about gravitational waves... I was just fascinated by the huge and super sensitive detector that got built to prove these waves exist, and then one hits right as they are setting it up? crazy!

[Dipra Lahiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

All excellent essays in their own right. However, they don't sit well together in one compilation. Too little of 'hard' science, more emphasis on the social aspects.

[SabCo T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first thing about this book I’d like to say is; SCIENCE

I got this as a pleasant birthday gift, and it was gifted to me because they said I always educate them on super interesting science-y things, and how they figured I’d appreciate it. They were right!

Like the synopsis explains, this book essentially is a collection of various nature and science-based published articles that were selected from thousands of submissions that Hope Jahren in this case, decided were important enough to be in 2017’s ‘Best American’ series.

There’s no much to really write about this since it’s all factual information [that of course if you like science and nature stuff, you’re going to most likely be into it], but I will give some thoughts on it.

The first is that the selection of articles sort of goes like;

Something kinda random, CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE CHANGE, something else kinda random, CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE CHANGE, oh hey two random articles in a row, CLIMATE CHANGE, oh and CLIMATE CHANGE WILL DESTROY US ALL. [DESTROYUSALL ]

Granted, climate change is discussed in various and examples so it doesn’t get repetitive or boring at all. Except for maybe the increasing dread you’ll experience with just how fucked we are if we don’t turn things around like… right now.

It took me a bit longer to get through the book because some of the articles are a lot more interesting than others. Some are straight up boring. [I don’t know if I ever wanted to have to read through an entire long-ass article about how/what the government defines ‘wilderness’ as in Utah, but here I am]

If you’re a science/nature nerd, then this will definitely be up your alley.

I give The Best American Science and Nature Writing [2017] 4/5 Urban-Evolved Rats

Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.

- - - - -

The dish was described as ‘damping through the boroughgroves.’ Presumably, no mome raths would be consumed.

- - - - -

And later, stumbling to town drunk, I found myself in the middle of a field staring at a glistening sky. Had I still believed in him, I’d say it looked like God had sneezed glitter.

- - - - -

Although the line between lunacy and scientific fact is constantly shifting, the search for aliens still occupies the shadows of cranks.

[Dan Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very good anthology of science and nature writing, but the most powerful essays here are in the third part of this collection, titled "The 'Real Life' of Scientists". Here is where we get a unusually personal glimpse into the people behind the science, and every story is wonderful.

Unfortunately, the first two parts of the book were very hit or miss for me. There were some standouts. "The Battle For Virunga", "The Secrets of The Wave Pilots", and "A Song of Ice" were particular standouts.

I read this collection every year, and I'm always impressed and invigorated by the pieces selected. Honestly, this is one of my favorite books to dive into each year. And although this year the collection left me a little wanting, it's worth picking up for the third part alone.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When entering this book, I had expected hard, analytical, scientific journals containing data of specific experiments and conclusive evidence of a point. However, I was treated to a different way of having a field of science explained.
Each essay was more like a non fiction story, told in the personal details of real people rather than the usual cold cut of experimental data a hard scientific journal may offer. For example, a scientific journal may only talk about what happened in the experiment, or extrapolate data into tangible terms relating to, you guessed it, the experiment. But this book offered more personal details of the scientists life, their successes and failures based on the topic, and their feelings on the topic. Rarely did I feel I was reading a "scientific journal". I felt more like I was reading a story that a company like national geographic had written up.
The book did a good job of explaining topics that may be difficult to grasp, like, my personal favorite, the gravitational waves caused by the decaying orbits of two circling black holes. It had to explain general relativity to a supposedly unexposed audience. It did a good job, using the classic, "space-time is a blanket and objects bend it" allusion. There are other examples obviously, but I feel like the explanation of the theoretical fabric and make up of the universe is a powerful example.
My most glaring issue with this book is the lack of data. I know, I know, I just spent the time praising it for its lack of stone cold formality, but at the same time, a lack of any hard data makes it feel like you're not reading a scientific journal entry, but an informative story. There's a good balance that needs to be achieved, hard data to satisfy those who could learn from it, and personality to keep the eyes of the reader open and heads up from their desks. This book comes agonizingly close to the balance, but falls just short.
All in all it is worth a read if you are interested in the sciences. This is not quite an entry level book for science love, as it is talking about topics outside the normal frame of reference. A better way to spark scientific love is to read up on the technical details of the things you encounter everyday, to create a better appreciation for them, and to view them differently. Since this book is not fully about everyday objects, but not about the unfathomable virtues of existence, I personally consider it a mid tier science read.

More entry level book: Michio Kaku's "Physics of the impossible"
(especially for sci-fi lovers)

More dense book: Ray Kurzeweil's "The singularity is near"

[Josef LaFranchise · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017” by Hope Jahren is a great collection of 24 articles that cover a wide array of topics from many different areas of studies within science. The articles in this book range from examining the effects of climate change on our world, explaining our search for a new planet to call home, to defining how we are able to detect gravitational waves, too many other interesting topics. This collection is a good fit to represent many of the advancements and issues scientists are facing today.

The articles are divided into three distinct sections; Emergent Fields, Changing Land and Resources, and The “Real Life” of Scientists. The first of these, Emergent Fields, takes a look at up and coming studies such as the measuring of gravitation waves. The next, Changing Land and Resources, focuses on how science impacts the way we attain the things we consume and maintain the land we live on. One of these articles explains that our overuse of antibiotics on ourselves and the food we eat is creating more and more resistant bacteria that can not be killed through normal means. The third section, The “Real Life” of Scientists, examines the lives of scientists from across many different fields and how their studies have impacted their lives, such as the case of George Prices, whos study of altruism lead him to give up everything he had. While the articles in this last section are interesting, I wish that there was more emphasis put on the previous two sections rather than this one, seeing as almost half of all of the articles fall into this section. The section that suffers the most from this problem is Emergent Fields, as it only contains 4 articles.

Despite this problem, this book does offer a sizeable enough assortment of articles that show how science is impacting our lives today and in the future. Through this book, I was able to discover and learn about fields of science that I had known little to nothing about. Even if you have only a slight interest in science I would recommend this book to pick up.

[Stephen Linehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being completely honest, at first, this book didn't peak my interest. The moment I started reading, I was immediately interested. I am a person who loves science and exploring the wilderness, so this book felt like it was specifically written for me. I appreciated how it brought up many current issues, from the challenges faced by exploring the ocean, to the bigger issues like Climate Change. This book will educate you on many things, all mostly categorized under the struggles of climate change. Every single piece included peaked my interest, and who knew you could have so much fun reading about science! If you'd like to keep up to date on scientific discoveries and more, this is perfect for you. The more you read the more you learn, just how I learned how much Climate Change effects Greenland. Previous to reading this I didn't realize how much danger Greenland is, with the water levels rising due to it melting ("A Song of Ice" by Elizabeth Kolbert). Getting even deeper into the book, you learn about some less talked about things in the scientific community. One of which that really caught me off guard was about how Sexual Harassment has previously been an issue. ("Out Here, No One Can Hear You Scream.") Overall I thought this book was very entertaining, as well as informative. I really appreciated how all the information was compiled into one easy purchase, along with the formatting within it.

[Pearse Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a gift from Gaby Parlapiano! Thank you.

Hope Jahren was a stellar voice for this year's volume. At a time when science seems ever more emotional, personal, and at risk of attack, Jahren gives us essays about scientists inner lives, their associations, uplifts, and struggles, and great power whether they are administrators or citizens. So, the third section of this book is great, yeah. The first two sections are also good, but I dunno, some of them made me question why they were chosen. This year's anthology had a ton of science, and if their was nature writing it was the type found in an Oxford or Scientific American anthology, not a Chelsea Green one. Y'know?

Best pieces: The Art of Saving Relics; The Secrets of Wave Pilots; The Invisible Catastrophe; How Factory Farms Play Chicken with Antibiotics; Out Here, No One Can Hear You Scream. Quality quality quality quality quality.

This book gave me some new appreciations for science, environmentalism, and oft-forgotten bureaucrats of those fields. Certainly taught me a lot more than some classes of ENVS 201. And even when I didn't enjoy pieces, I just jumped to the next one, or I thought about why. And that was interesting. There were a bunch of examples of pieces that did so many things well, but if they just had a touch more Nieman's, they might have become something else.

[Matthew Chisholm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This edition of the Best American Nature and Science Writing was published just before the inauguration of Trump started to work back the major progress that Obama's administration had made in protecting and preserving the environment and halting the advance of climate change. It was curious to read these stories in the middle of 2020 when there is so much cynicism and feelings of betrayal from both me and many of my friends about where our natural world is heading.

The major contributions for this edition revolved around the work of astrophysicists and women in science in general. Hope Jahren (editor) did a wonderful job getting the easily buried stories of women in science to the fore, and there is a much-needed bias of getting these scientific "Joans-of-Arc" to the forefront of our environmental attention.

My favorite in the collection was Kathryn Joyce's "Out Here, No One Can Hear You Scream," a damning account of how the National Park Service has slowly allowed a dark world of male-dominated harassment culture, victim-blaming, and toxic masculinity to perpetuate in the culture surrounding our natural treasures. A close second was Christopher Solomon's "The Devil is in the Details," another incredible exposé about how hard it is for wilderness advocates and industrialists to reach a spirit of compromise with how the land should be used.

Overall, the 2017 edition was an incredible collection whose stories make me sad that it seems like the work that many of these scientists were doing has stagnated in terms of official policy changes.

[Satid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another educating and informative one of the series that I have been reading for 30 years or so. The best articles are from David Epstein, Tom Philpott, Sonia Smith and Kim Tingley. Good are also those about Climate Change but I start to hate reading more and more of them because it become more and more depressing to realize that this issue is mainly caused by those Large Corporations and how many people from those companies read this series? People like me who read articles about Global Boiling cannot do anything significant to even substantially retard the problem from its deadly forward march!

Katryn Joyce's story is interesting but it is weird because it has very little, if at all, to do with science nor nature! It is more suitable for the past series named Best American Crime Reporting which somehow, alas, was terminated many years ago. The same with Chris Solomon's story which is mainly about politics of nature conservation organization in US.

I also have a changed expectation to this series and also notices changes in the selection of articles. I start to doubt the value of article about physics and cosmology. How does reading about the prove of gravitational wave or the existence of exoplanet like earth help bring peace locally or globally, or promoting socioeconomic equity, or eliminate world wide plastic and food waste and hunger? What is neorugastromony good for other than being a pleasure for the rich? I hope the series editor Tim Folger would change his policy to gear more towards article selection criteria that address contemporary issues of the world.

[Gg · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2017 in my opinion was far from the best, but I will say that I learned a lot about a variety of different topics relating to science. The book brought to my attention severe issues like climate change, as well as stories of astronauts, outer space, concerning overpopulation, and lack of conservation land etc. I had never read a non-fiction book in this format before, so I thought it would be good to try something new, but honestly I was not a huge fan of how you would read a few pages on one topic and then a totally different topic would appear.
I found a few of the writings to be very compelling like the wearable technology startup, and the life stories of scientists, but many of them I just was not interested in and they just went over my head. For example a lot of the writings about space just did not interest me what so ever and were way too complex for a sixteen year old high school student to understand. A good book to me captures my attention and makes me want to keep reading, but with this book I found didn't capture my attention and grab me in at all.

[Rita Ciresi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best science and nature writing leaves us in awe of the hidden rules of the universe. Hope Jahren, author of Lab Girl, has chosen several that did just that. While every reader will find different favorites, mine were Michael Regnier's "The Man Who Gave Himself Away," David Epstein's "The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene," and Kim Tingley's "The Secrets of the Wave Pilots." Jon Mooallem's "The Amateur Cloud Society That (Sort of) Rattled the Scientific Community" is a particularly delightful gem with a surprising ending.

Several pieces are devoted to the role of women in science, but only one seems worthy of the title "Best of." Kathryn Joyce's "Out Here, No One Can Hear You Scream" is a thorough investigative report of foul doings in our National Parks. The rest of this subset of essays, to me, read like summaries rather than lively and insightful explorations of this important subject matter.

The emphasis here is on biological and environmental science with the recurring theme of climate change running through many of the works.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this collection. Of all the Best-of series, my recent discovery of this series has given me the most pleasure. Climate change is probably the most common issue, but there are stories about conserving spacesuits, gas leaks, and the lives of scientists. I was alarmed to find a former nuclear energy plant up river from my home mentioned in passing as the most hazards site in the nation. There is great depth here. Some of the essays are right at the outer edge of my own scientific understanding—I do not have much of a science background—but the writing is compelling and clear and these essays have stayed with me. Several included passages I wanted my students to read, usually for both fascinating content and writing skill.

This is a read-twice book. This is a book that should be assigned to high school students. Because of the information and impact I found here, I plan to go back through the series and read earlier collections.

[Trish Remley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful variety of subject matter. I especially liked The Billion-Year Wave, Dark Matter, The DIY Scientist-the Olympian-and the Mutated Gene, Something Uneasy in the Los Angeles Air, The Women Who Might Find Us Another Earth, and The Amateur Cloud Society. Alarmed by many of the other chapters including The New Harpoon, How factory Farms Play Chicken with Antibiotics, A Song of Ice, and The Invisible Catastrophe. In light of all the sexual harassment accusations, sad & of course not surprising to find it in the lab as well as out in nature. Especially upset with He Fell In Love With His Grad Student - Then Fired her For It and Out Here-No One Can Hear You Scream. Actually as I look at the appendix, many more interesting and thought provoking chapters. Great editorial job Hope Jahren.

[Kirk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as last year's edition.

It seems like the editor here pre-identified themes and then selected pieces to fit within them. Instead of last year's pleasant and random assortment of great writing, here you find a thematic collection of works that were more diluted in terms of overall quality.

The works are also more heavily focused towards social aspects of science than science and nature writing itself.

I see what the editor was doing here (and agree there is merit to it), but when I read "The Best Science and Nature Writing 2017" I'm looking for the best pieces about science and nature from 2017. Instead this is more like "A Curated Collection of Great Writing about the Sociology of Science and Nature." Still fine, but not what I signed up for.

Still looking forward to the 2018 edition.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is always one of my most anticipated reads of the year, and I enjoyed so many of the articles compiled in this edition. Some highlights for me were articles discussing:

-A fascinating look at a woman who self-diagnosed herself -- and an Olympian -- with a rare genetic disorder.

-The dwindling art/science of Pacific islanders navigating seemingly by feel.

-An investigation of the health impacts of a gas leak in California that the responsible company swears is perfectly safe.

-A dive into the life of a brilliant physicist who walked away from her science career to become a business entrepreneur.

There were a couple of misses, in my view, but overall a strong collection.

[Crosby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This series is my “airplane reading” because it is conveniently broken up into short chapters each covering a special essay in science, nature and/or medicine. I was disappointed in this particular collection because the entire first half consisted mainly of climate warming/ecological topics. I am as concerned about that area of science as others that follow it but I expected diversity in my reading from this publication & this collection did not provide that. The latter half of the collection was much more interesting & to my liking. The essays were largely about unique individuals & what made their lives different & productive— good section.

[Will Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I personally didn't find any of the stories too interesting, as for the one I read, Something Uneasy in the Los Angeles Air, by Adrian Glick Kudler. To be totally honest, I just didn't find anything interesting in the book, I bet you they're good stories, but personally, it isn't really my cup of tea, if you're picking up what I'm putting down. But seriously, it was just stating facts, not necessarily telling a story, if that makes any sense. In conclusion, I just don't personally like the book.

[Stephen Dorneman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me longer than usual to finish the 2017 edition of this essay series -- in part due to things going on in my own life, but in part due to the editor's overloading on climate change essays, and also the inclusion of two sexual harassment pieces that, while important pieces of journalism, didn't seem to me like they fit the normal parameters of the collection. Still, recommended.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a truly wonderful book. While I am not well read in short story/ essay genre a friend gave me this book as a gift and I was so pleased that I went outside my comfort zone. One major takeaway from this collection is the vast and challenging issues that face our planet on a local and global level.

[Donna Luu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as good as previous editions, which I attribute to the section on scientists, rather than science writing. Still, I'm always glad to read something by Elizabeth Kolbert and about Greenland.

[Ku · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent edition. My favorite articles were 1) the woman who self diagnosed a rare genetic disorder, and 2) the person who founded the cloud appreciation society and his efforts to add new classifications into the official Cloud Atlas.

[Elaine Burnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This notably adds some pieces about harassment of women in the sciences. Disgusting how women have been treated by the Forest Service and National Park Service—by contractors running rafts through the Grand Canyon.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first experience with this series. It was wonderful to have the kind of articles I enjoy curated for me. I plan to read newer editions of Science and Nature, and to explore other topics from this publisher.