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A review by jdintr
Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live by Rob Dunn
3.0
In a series of related essays, Dunn looks at all aspects of life within the home. He has fashioned for himself a very clever area of expertise where--instead of exploring the ends of the earth for new species--he has found abundant life to study in his back hard and in his basement!
Dunn takes the readers from the slime inside the shower spigot (where he realizes that water-treatment may be killing the wrong (i.e. good) kinds of bacteria and failing to remove all the pathogens) to the bugs and remains found underneath the couch, where he finds undiscovered species and nearly 200 species of insect in even the cleanest houses.
The chapters can be read separately or consecutively. In critique, reading as a person without specific science knowledge, I feel like Dunn could have used a better editor, skipping some of the gee-whiz methods of sample collecting for more of the analysis and application.
Overall, Dunn argues for more biological diversity in our homes and shower spigots, rather than attacking bugs (seen and unseen). This book is a fine reminder of the life that surrounds us, of the teeming multitudes of fauna among which we live every day.
Dunn takes the readers from the slime inside the shower spigot (where he realizes that water-treatment may be killing the wrong (i.e. good) kinds of bacteria and failing to remove all the pathogens) to the bugs and remains found underneath the couch, where he finds undiscovered species and nearly 200 species of insect in even the cleanest houses.
The chapters can be read separately or consecutively. In critique, reading as a person without specific science knowledge, I feel like Dunn could have used a better editor, skipping some of the gee-whiz methods of sample collecting for more of the analysis and application.
Overall, Dunn argues for more biological diversity in our homes and shower spigots, rather than attacking bugs (seen and unseen). This book is a fine reminder of the life that surrounds us, of the teeming multitudes of fauna among which we live every day.