Environmental Studies

Biodiversity loss can seem like a remote and abstract problem that pales in comparison to climate worries. But award-winning author David Quammen sees them as coequal threats, along with emerging diseases, and encourages journalists to illuminate the relationships between them. His advice includes getting out of big cities to see the extinction crisis firsthand and weaving humor and hope into your writing.

In his fascinating volume about John James Audubon, world-renowned naturalist-writer-illustrator Kenn Kaufman pays homage to the artist but meticulously dissects the man, writes BookShelf Editor Tom Henry. A review of “The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness” depicts how Audubon, driven by the rivalries of his time, marred his own legacy with factual errors and outright fraud.

It’s a much-understudied area of animal behavior. But play, as it turns out, may serve many developmental functions. A new book, “Kingdom of Play,” explores what play looks like in many types of creatures and in the process provides a deft synthesis of evolutionary biology, neurology and the history of science to examine its elusive nature. A BookShelf review from Jenny Weeks.