What we are reading @studystore_uvt
Daphne;
"Homo Britannicus" door Chris Stringer
Homo Britannicus When did the first people arrive here? What did they look like? How did they survive? Who were the Neanderthals? The author takes us back to when it was so tropical we lived alongside hippos, elephants and sabre-toothed tigers or to times so cold we hunted reindeer and mammoth, and to others even colder when we were forced to flee a wall of ice.
Koen;
"Why did the chicken cross the world" door Andrew Lawler
From ancient empires to modern economics, veteran journalist Andrew Lawler delivers a sweeping history of the animal that has been most crucial to the spread of civilization across the globeâthe chicken. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socratesâ last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. Throughout the history of civilization, humans have embraced it in every form imaginableâas a messenger of the gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, emblem of resurrection, all-purpose medicine, handy research tool, inspiration for bravery, epitome of evil, and, of course, as the star of the worldâs most famous joke. In Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?, science writer Andrew Lawler takes us on an adventure from prehistory to the modern era with a fascinating account of the partnership between human and chicken (the most successful of all cross-species relationships). Beginning with the recent discovery in Montana that the chickenâs unlikely ancestor is T. rex, this book builds on Lawlerâs popular Smithsonian cover article, âHow the Chicken Conquered the Worldâ to track the chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to postwar America, where it became the most engineered of animals, to the uncertain future of what is now humanityâs single most important source of protein. In a masterful combination of historical sleuthing and journalistic exploration on four continents, Lawler reframes the way we feel and think about our most important animal partnerâand, by extension, all domesticated animals, and even nature itself. Lawlerâs narrative reveals the secrets behind the chickenâs transformation from a shy jungle bird into an animal of astonishing versatility, capable of serving our speciesâ changing needs. For no other siren has called humans to rise, shine, and prosper quite like the roosterâs cry: âcock-a-doodle-doo!â
Philomeen;
"The unseen guest" door Maryrose Wood
Of especially naughty children it is sometimes said, "They must have been raised by wolves." The Incorrigible children actually were. Since returning from London, the three Incorrigible children and their plucky governess, Miss Penelope Lumley, have been exceedingly busy. Despite their wolfish upbringing, the children have taken up bird-watching, with no unfortunate consequencesâyet. And a perplexing gift raises hard questions about how Penelope came to be left at the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females and why her parents never bothered to return for her. But hers is not the only family mystery to solve. When Lord Fredrick's long-absent mother arrives with the noted explorer Admiral Faucet, gruesome secrets tumble out of the Ashton family tree. And when the admiral's prized racing ostrich gets loose in the forest, it will take all the Incorrigibles' skills to find her. The hunt for the runaway ostrich is on. But Penelope is worried. Once back in the wild, will the children forget about books and poetry and go back to their howling, wolfish ways? What if they never want to come back to Ashton Place at all?











