Hope Jahren’s latest book begins at the beginning: her beginning, that is. Born in 1969, her parents picked her first name with typical Midwestern directness, expressing their own hope that their daughter would live a life of plenty, a life better than theirs. Like most parents in our culture, they wanted their child to have more. The rest of the book focuses on how our culture has defined that goal, how we’ve pursued it, and what those choices are costing us and our own descendants.

I’ve started a new blog. I’ll still be blogging here as before, so if you enjoy alandove.com you’ll still be able to (and if you loathe alandove.com, well, what are you doing here)? The new site follows the story of Walter and Ina, who were both born in rural Southern towns just before the turn of the 20th century. Walter is from Mississippi, Ina is from Texas. The story opens at the beginning of the Great War, with Walter shipping out for France with an Army aviation squadron and Ina attending college in Texas and worrying about the boys “over there.

Everyone knows how to determine the age of a tree that’s just been cut down: count the rings. But did you know that the same general strategy can be used to track ancient weather patterns, explain the rise and fall of great empires, and construct detailed histories of long-vanished societies that left no written records? I do now, thanks to Tree Story, Valerie Trouet’s well-written and engaging dive into the fascinating science of dendrochronology.