@internrachel @julia1 I finished ‘The Heyday of Natural History’ by Lynn Barber, 320 pgs, last night. I vacillated between being completely amused and mildly off-put the entire book. First off it was hard to find this book! It was mentioned in the bibliography of a book I read earlier this summer and I decided I had to read it. But NYPL didn’t have it, my school library didn’t have it (because my school library is awful), and when my sister tried to check it out from Columbia (where it was mysteriously supposed to be in the math library, what?) it was missing. Then I discovered inter-library loans and in like two days I had the book! Anyways the book covers the rise of interest in natural history from the early 19th century til about the 1870s (just a little after Darwin started publishing). The beginning of the book is about the various natural history fads (ferns! aquariums! moths! alligators!) and the possible reasons natural history became such a thing at the time. The second part of the book has brief biographies of many natural historians, professional and amateur alike. Those dudes were nuts! The ladies less so but it was rare that ladies were respected as natural historians. Religion is talked about in the entire book, how natural history was used to prove the veracity of the Bible and the conflicts of interest as the theory of natural selection came to public view. The writing style was sometimes condescending and sometimes hilarious. So far this is the only book I’ve read this summer that I wouldn’t reread but I also don’t regret reading it. And I think it’s the last natural history book for the summer, three is pretty good. Now on to Jack the Ripper!