Book review: "The Alps - A Human History From Hannibal to Heidi and Beyond" by Stephen O'Shea

 In today's episode of Wesley Loves a Real Specific Nonfiction read today we have one about a series of places that I would like to visit - the Alps!

What I appreciate about this book is the incredible range of topics that this book covers, like the title suggests you get Heidi and Hannibal but you also get more modern takes on things that effect the Alps. Also, holy shit, the amount of really terrible accidents that I learned about in this book. There are accidents in traffic tunnels (the Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire - also side not the beautiful Chamonix Valley is the most polluted valley in france thanks to all of the exhaust of the trunks that are funneled through the tunnel), more mountaineering accidents than I could possibly recount here, and one of the most horrifying things that I have ever heard of - the Kaprun Cable Car Fire. Lots of bad awful things happening in beautiful places.

The books is a travel memoir along with a history and the author recounts his experiences in places and with people along the way. One thing that he learns from his travels is the "lard line" - on the north side of the Cottian Alps they used animal fat and on the south side they use olive oil. Theres a map that Ive seen that I really love where theres a line and on the north side it's all potatoes and on the south side it's all tomatoes.

- Did you know that Europe's largest Tibetan population is in Switzerland? There was an influx after the Chinese occupation of the country. Maybe the Alps remind them of home?

-According to the Heidi museum, the book Heidi is the third most translated book in the world after the Bible and the Quaran. Seems like......something you would say about your own book in your own museum, but hey, what do I know?

-WWI was really costly for the Italians. 689,000 dead, over a million seriously disabled and 600,000 civilians were killed. 100,000 Italian POWs died in captivity because the Italian government refused to supply food to their POWs like literally every other country did because they didn't want it to encourage desertion. They also shot 750 of their own soldiers.

I absolutley reccommend this book - funny, interesting, informative. Anything I could ever want!

"Below the Edge of Darkness: Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea" by Edith Widder, PhD

I think that the ocean is one of the scariest things that this world holds. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the deepest depths of the ocean. When I think about that I'm pretty thrilled that I am Great Lakes adjacent but not anything bigger than that. But that never stops me from reading book about it. Especially books about cephalopods. I for one will welcome out octopus overlords.

Also, I'm going to spell bioluminescent wrong and in a variety of waves in this review and I just, don't care, so bear with me. 

One of my favorite things from this book is actually from the preface and it's a quote that the author keeps in her office, most people think it's from GK Chesterton "The world will not perish for want of wonders, but for want of wonder". I think a lot about how easy it is to lose your sense of wonder when the answers to almost everything can be found on your handheld computer that lives in your pocket or most often your hand. I like not always having the answers to some things, especially when it comes to nature. 

So this researcher is a marine biologist who focuses most on bioluminescence of deep sea creatures. If you don't know what bioluminescence is it's basically that these critters glow, a lot of times on command! But the author also weaves in some personal stories about her struggles with regaining her eyesight and other faculties after an accident. She also has a fair amount of funny footnotes a la my main squeeze Mary Roach, which I appreciate.

Did you know that 95% of all animal species on earth have eyes? I'm assuming that the ones that don't our the earth dwelling ones, like moles who having eyeballs wouldn't be an advantage. The giant squid has an eyeball the size of your head (which makes me kind of want to puke and desperately want to see one at the same time). Seals and their big beautiful eyes are more sensitive than human eyes, and elephant seal eyes the most sensitive of all of the seals which is helpful because a lot of their food sources are bioluminescent. 

A lot of bioluminescent fish have lights on their bellies, so when open ocean predators, like sharks, look up and expect to see a familiar outline of a specific prey animal the lights obscure the expected outline and sometimes allows them to get away. It's very common apparently.

The author also spends a lot of time in very small submersible vehicles (kind of like James Cameron is famous for - besides directing - and he actually blurbs the book) and when she is in a machine that holds 2 people one of her colleague joking hands her a switchblade and calls it "an oxygen doubler" in case she wanted to cut her diving partners oxygen line. Which, honestly I found hilarious. 

This books is full of interesting facts about the oceans creatures and it also sheds light on how hard it can be to be a researcher, always wondering where your funding is going to come from and the high pressure to have everything go right so you have something to show for all of your spending!