All posts in Featured Books

Ophidiophobia is the irrational fear of snakes–those slithering, scaly reptiles that have been cast as the archetypal villain throughout history. Their unnatural movements and eerily flexible jaw joints do nothing to lessen their evil reputation.

It’s been going on for six weeks now, but these first days of September see the southbound migration of songbirds in full swing. And all up and down the east coast of North America, birders are taking to the field in search of little brown birds and little green birds and little greenish-brown birds. It was no different in the early autumn of 1842. On a fine September morning, the 29-year-old John Cassin set out for Bingham’s Woods, then and now—as part of today’s Fairmount Park—one of Philadelphia’s favorite birding playgrounds.

It’s been called the drink of civilization. The beverage that reflects the entire history of the Western world in one gulp. A small berry has sparked revolutions, genocide, imperialism, innovation–and yet is still able to satisfy the standard caffeine craving every morning. Coffee is a powerful concoction, serving as inspiration for most activities before lunch, and, this week, it also serves as inspiration for the Book of the Week, “Coffee; its history and also its remarkable growth in the world of commerce.” Most people would easily be able to pick a coffee bean out of a line up, but finding the coffee in nature might be more difficult.

A tiny corner of green in a bustling city landscape, the cemetery of Philadelphia’s Gloria Dei Church is the resting place of Alexander Wilson, who died 200 years ago today at the age of 47, his great American Ornithology almost finished.

The North Sea—at least according to Walter Wood—was awash in blood and fish.

Where were they going? That is what the majority of the 44,000 soldiers and sailors on 400 French ships must have been thinking up until they landed near Alexandria on July 2, 1798.