The Natural Curiosity Project

In 1942, Simon & Schuster, in partnership with Western Publishing, released a new book series for kids. The initial print run of one-and-a-half million books sold out in five months, including one of the initial twelve titles that became and continues to be the number one bestselling children’s book of all time in the United States. In this episode, we talk about that book s...

I just finished reading my 83rd book of the year, Bernd Heinrich’s “The Common Uncommon.” Bernd is the author of many books about the natural world, including Mind of the Raven, Winter World, The Geese at Beaver Bog, A Year in the Maine Woods, and many, many others. Oh—he’s also a world record holder for ultra-marathon running: In 1983, he set an American record for a 24-hour r...

A lot has been written about the ages of human existence, beginning with the Stone and Iron and Bronze Ages, then going all the way through to the Information Age. But I believe that there are actually more identifiable periods that aren’t talked about—13 of them in fact. In this episode, I’m going to talk about them and why I think they’re important. I’m also going to discuss h...

It’s all around us. It lies beneath our feet, it gets embedded in our clothing and skin, and the air is filled with it. It makes us sneeze. Great clouds of the stuff are lifted from the African Sahara by harmattans and sciroccos and carried high into the atmosphere, where great westward-flowing aerial rivers carry it across the Atlantic to South America, where it falls like rain...

In 1940, author John Steinbeck and his good friend and marine biologist Ed Ricketts set off on a six-week collecting expedition in the Sea of Cortez. The book that resulted from that journey isn't well known, but it is wonderful. Here I offer a few thoughts about the book and their journey.