Naming Nature, Carol Kaesuk Yoon (nonfiction)

Whether you are a scientist or a reader of science or just someone who cares deeply about the world, you will find much to like in Carol Kaesuk Yoon's book, Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science.

I first discovered Yoon's writing when I read her essay about the movie Avatar in The New York Times. A science writer with a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology, she has been writing articles for NYT for years, but it was the blockbuster movie that first brought her writing to my attention. I immediately responded to her "potent joy" in the wonders of the natural world. That and her very engaging way with words.

In that essay, she mentioned she had just completed a book, Naming Nature. I sought it out, and I was not disappointed. Naming Nature journeys through the history of the science of taxonomy, scrutinizing our desire to make sense of the natural world, and argues that it is driven by the human "umwelt" (pronounced, as Yoon helpfully notes, OOM-velt). Our umwelt consists of what we perceive in the world, so it will vary from place to place. Someone who lives in the desert will have a very different umwelt from someone who lives in the mountains.

There is nothing dry about taxonomy the way Yoon tells it. Here's how she describes the cassowary, a creature that has given taxonomists and various peoples fits over the years — is it a bird or not?

Sometimes reaching six and a half feet tall, the cassowary is a claw-your-eyes-out-if-cornered bipedal bird, with a black mop of a body, a tiny head that can be shockingly bright blue, and hefty, clomping legs and feet. Think bloated, sinister-looking Big Bird with attitude...

After tracing the evolution of traditional taxonomy, its battles to define and order nature that is no longer local but global, its rise and inevitable fall when pitted against mathematical proofs and scientific observations at the level of microorganisms, Yoon concludes with a direct appeal to the non-scientists among us. She makes the case that — while there is value in science discovering what cannot be perceived with human eyes — we should not be so quick to give up our connection to the natural world:

The living world is dying, but it's not too late...Think back to a time in your life before you knew what science was, before you could tell a Coke from a Pepsi..when every beacon on your umwelt shone bright and clear and welcome. Then find an organism—any organism, small, large, gaudy, subtle, exotic, mundane...and get a sense of it, its shape, color, size, feel, smell, sound. Feel your umwelt rev up...Then find a name for it. Take your pick... This changes everything, yourself included... once you have a name ... you begin to see the shape, the natural order of living things. You will begin to notice life where it is, all around you. It's not too late.

This is a praise song for the living world.

I am not alone in my enthusiasm for Naming Nature. It was named a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, one of the Best Books of 2009 by New Scientist, one of the Best Sci-Tech Books of 2009 by Library Journal.

This is the best kind of science writing: I learned a great deal, and I loved every minute.

Bringing Yoga to Life, Donna Farhi (nonfiction)

I am one of those people who likes the idea of yoga but rarely manages more than a session every blue moon. But the blurb on the back of Donna Farhi's Bringing Yoga to Life promised "a practical discipline for everyday living...encouraging and straightforward." And much to my amazement, it has motivated me to spend a few minutes each day on the mat.

What is different about Farhi's approach? It sounds odd, but I responded to her voice — not in some woo-hoo way, but to its clarity and frankness.

Early in the first section, "Coming Home," she writes:

… we may notice that we consistently allow the urgent to override the important... that we have a deeply ingrained habit of giving the most time, energy, and commitment to things that ultimately are not very important...

And with that she had me. Allowing the urgent to override the important is what I do best.

In the book’s third section, “Roadblocks and Distractions,” she takes on sloth, strong emotions, blind spots, assumptions, and self-worth, and makes it clear that yoga practice will reveal much more than your ability to hold a pose. If she had not already acquired credibility in the earlier chapters — through her empathy for the difficulty of practice and her honesty in exposing fallacy in shortcuts — she would have with this:

I am always a bit suspicious of people who walk around spouting angelic proclamations about how wonderful and beautiful and full of light everything is... I'm not talking about the wonderful silence that one feels around a Tibetan monk, who really is that silence. I'm talking about a flamboyant, in-your-face, exhibitionist goodness that should have warning labels on it.

And at the close of the book:

All Yoga practices lead to seeing things as they are... Instead of running away, we can sit still, breathe, and watch.

Nothing easy about it. But Farhi inspired me to begin.

Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa, Karin Muller (nonfiction)

Focus. Harmony. Wa. I wasn't even sure exactly what wa was, but I wanted some.

A decade of Judo practice, service in the Peace Corps, an engagement followed by disengagement, and a dream job as a filmmaker with National Geographic — none of this gave Karin Muller a ready answer to a birthday taunt from her brother: Still looking for the meaning of life?

Anyone who has fallen in love with the Japan of perfectly raked rock gardens and Zen-like equanimity will understand Muller's quest. But since almost everyone has written about it, I resisted reading yet another memoir. Until my Japanese tutor's husband, a man who has experienced his own share of 'lost in translation' moments, assured me it was worth it.

Japanland — despite its often hilarious moments — proved to be a painful read. Dissonant, focused on the wrong things, Muller’s search for harmony often revealed a shocking lack of awareness and consideration of others that was all too reflective of my own clumsy efforts over the years. But Muller gained entree into corners of contemporary and ancient Japan rarely experienced by non-Japanese (or for that matter, by many Japanese).

Over the course of a year, she learned firsthand about sword-making and sumo, the life of a 60-year-old geisha and Kobo Daishi's pilgrimage to 88 temples in search of enlightenment, just to name a few examples.

At the end of her journey she finds herself at a local Judo club with a handful of students half her age and a sensei many years her senior. There she is thrown. And thrown. And thrown again.

Japanland is about being thrown and getting up: a funny, painful, honest foray into what it is like to lose — and find — yourself in another culture.

The Collaborative Habit, Twyla Tharp (nonfiction)

Twyla Tharp opens The Collaborative Habit, her follow-up to the 2003 triumph, The Creative Habit, noting that as a choreographer she is also a "career collaborator," and the lessons she has learned apply to any discipline. And therein lies the problem. Unlike her earlier work with its myriad exercises that left me invigorated and inspired, The Collaborative Habit is about work, the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, day-in/day-out process of getting the job done. The creative process prompts us to take flight; collaborations require that our feet remain solidly on the ground.

But if the process is less magical, Tharp's insights are no less relevant. She understands that the best partnerships both challenge us and change us, and when successful, they produce something greater and different than either partner could have achieved independently.

I found especially interesting her point that the less well you know a partner, the more advance work you must do, including building in protection against failure. And yet despite her contractual escape clauses — specifying deadlines that must be met, milestones that must be marked — she has never walked away from a project. It is that work ethic I admired so much in The Creative Habit. Twyla Tharp believes in working to make it work.

And if new partnerships prompt a flurry of due diligence, collaborations with friends give her even greater pause. She understands the siren call of wanting to work with people you like, who share your values and your dreams. But she cautions against it, detailing the great risks working together brings and questioning how losing a friend could possibly be worth it.

If The Collaborative Habit does not have the juice of The Creative Habit, it is just as generous, offering a front row seat on all that Tharp has learned in four decades of practice.

29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life, Cami Walker (nonfiction)

Cami Walker was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a month after her marriage. Understandably devastated, within the first two years of diagnosis she was sinking into a psychological abyss as the disease changed how she saw herself and what she was able to do. At her lowest point, a friend -- a medicine woman and spiritual adviser named Mbali -- suggested she give 29 gifts over 29 days.

This book about giving was a gift from my sister, so it is fitting that I begin my year of reading women with it. As I followed Cami Walker on her journey -- how she came to it reluctantly, how it transformed her days so she looked beyond her losses to others and discovered what she had to offer -- I admired her fortitude and her struggle to be open to the small blessings of life. It is a cautionary tale on the transience of life, but I found myself wanting less memoir and more reflection on giving. Nonetheless as her website and many television appearances attest, many have been inspired to give more of him or herself as a result. And that's a gift.