A Community Read & Discussion for Lovers of Books and Nature!
Read a book. Meet the author! Join fellow readers for discussion.
When: Tuesday, March 19 at 6:30pm
Where: The Mustard Seed Bookstore in Bath
This year’s selection is Underbug: A Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology by local author, Lisa Margonelli.
From Amazon:
Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually―and yet, in Margonelli’s telling, seem weirdly familiar. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with the little bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military industrial complex. What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we’re building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition.
Whether in Namibia or Cambridge, Arizona or Australia, Margonelli turns up astounding facts and raises provocative questions. Is a termite an individual or a unit of a superorganism? Can we harness the termite’s properties to change the world? If we build termite-like swarming robots, will they inevitably destroy us? Is it possible to think without having a mind? Underbug burrows into these questions and many others―unearthing disquieting answers about the world’s most underrated insect and what it means to be human.
Shop local! Purchase your copy of Underbug from the Mustard Seed Bookstore.
Please register for the evening discussion event at 207-442-8400 or using the Google form below.
