Interspersed with autobiographical observations, Jennifer Ackerman’s Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body is both a personal and generalized tour of the human body. Ackerman’s work is fascinating, and it’s easy to focus on the parts that most interest the reader like, why can’t I sleep at night? (It might be just part of the aging process.) Or, what makes that woman so attractive? (A direct gaze, symmetrical face, full lips and dilated pupils.) But the whole book is worth investigating for its explorations of appetite, sexual urges and nightmares, among other distinctly human experiences and expressions. The book is divided into times of day morning, midday, afternoon, evening and night and then subdivided into germane topics. The system of organization works well because it keeps readers conscious of the rhythms of the body, so formed by the rhythms of the day. The section on Wit, for example, is in the morning part of the book, when many of us are sharpest, and a section on how we interpret different faces is in the Dusk portion, when many people attend parties or other social events. The Afternoon section includes The Doldrums and In Motion, encompassing both the torpor and production that the post-lunch period seems to engender. Ackerman’s latest is full of intriguing facts, including that coffee’s flavor is 75 percent due to its odor. Jaws can put as much as 128 pounds of pressure on teeth during chewing. Laughter rouses the brain’s most primal reward circuits, which is how it relieves stress. Regular moderate exercise may relieve the symptoms of depression as well as therapy, and humans are the only species that can override the body’s natural sequence at will, forcing ourselves to stay awake, or denying hunger pangs. Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream offers fascinating insight into the workings of our often inscrutable bodies. It’s also amazingly comprehensive. As Ackerman writes, From caress to orgasm, multitasking to memorizing, working out to stressing out, drooping to dreaming, it’s here.

They say a great painting shows you an ordinary scene a pasture you pass on your way to work every day, for instance and suddenly makes you see it as if for the first time. Michael Sims’ Apollo’s Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination shows us something we’ve seen thousands of times: one day in the life of planet Earth. Starting at dawn and proceeding through morning, afternoon, twilight and the witching hours of night, Sims writes in often poetic detail about the natural phenomena that shape our days: the sun, the Moon, atmospheric particles that absorb and reflect light, and so on.

Sims’ inquiries into the alternating dance of light and dark that plays upon our heavens reflects his wide range of interests and formidable reading schedule, as previously demonstrated in Adam’s Navel and Darwin’s Orchestra. One moment, he’s quoting Charles Darwin, then next Vladimir Nabokov. While teaching his readers about the sun, clouds, contrails, rainbows, the rotation of the Earth and Moon, Sims veers freely from science to mythology, from the discoveries of cavemen to the speculations of science fiction. The myth he loves most is that of Phaethon, the teenage son of sun god Apollo. Phaethon is famous as the boy whose outsized ambitions far outstripped his abilities. Anxious to prove himself Apollo’s true heir, he insists on driving the horse-powered sun chariot despite Apollo’s strong misgivings. When the immortal wild horses prove far too unruly for Phaethon’s limited charioting skills, he endangers not only himself but also the entire planet. Sims’ beautiful retelling of the Phaethon story forms a bass note which ties the various themes of Apollo’s Fire together. The story of Phaethon usefully binds a modern scientific understanding of our days to the intuited poetic understanding of ancient writers. Although hydrogen and helium do exist and Apollo and his chariot do not, Sims writes, it is beginning to look as if mythology has not overstated the sun’s importance neither its generosity nor its tantrums. The scientific evidence indicates that the sun’s royal position in the mythological hierarchy makes perfect sense.

More than 65 million American households have a pet, so it’s difficult to comprehend that many living creatures in this country are neglected, abused and cruelly murdered each year. Why Animals Matter: The Case for Animal Protection explores this contradiction as it exposes the suffering of domestic and wild animals in America. Bypassing complicated philosophical arguments, authors Erin E. Williams of the Humane Society of the United States and Margo DeMello of the House Rabbit Society coolly present sordid details of the human-animal relationship in America, from the meat, textile, hunting and medical experiment industries, to the use of animals as family and entertainment. The realities are brutal and no myths are left unturned: That delicious Sunday roasted chicken survived on a factory farm in a cage so small it couldn’t flap its wings, covered in feces and fattened until it couldn’t stand, to provide dinner at the cheapest price possible. Rationalizations and arguments about history, necessity and overpopulation don’t stand up to the heavily footnoted studies and points made here; if you’re going to eat that chicken, at least honor it by acknowledging what it went through to get to your table. Why Animals Matter ends with a manifesto for compassion and decency toward all living things, but remains a difficult look at America’s heart of darkness.

<b>Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog</b> The dilemma of the canine’s true nature is explored by award-winning writer Ted Kerasote in <b>Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog</b>. Touches of a crunchy-granola-hippie philosophy infuse the story that begins when a dog approaches outdoorsman Kerasote and his friends while they’re on a river camping trip in Utah. Apparently living on its own in the scrub among the Navajo, the friendly Lab mix endears itself to the whole camp; when they pack up for their next site downriver, the dog runs along the shore, unsure about leaving behind its familiar territory. But as in the best Disney story, the dog jumps into the boat at the very last second and chooses somewhat loosely Kerasote as his companion. Merle and the free-spirited writer return to his small Wyoming town and settle into the give-and-take of getting to know each other, mano-a-dogo. Kerasote observes, romanticizes, admires and resorts to the inexplicable to indulge, then curb Merle’s behavior, confused about how to help the dog adjust to life with humans while remaining wild. Though he often takes the observations of experts (Dr. Temple Grandin, the Monks of New Skete, Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz, Dr. Richard Skinner) out of context to bolster his own preconceptions, Kerasote retains deep respect for Merle’s essential nature and longing for freedom. Blasting out of his doggie door to explore the countryside, visiting neighbors and hunting wild animals then returning to home and hearth, Merle leads Kerasote to ponder, make mistakes, love and learn. The unapologetic imperfection of Kerasote’s choices proves that relationships with dogs are as complicated as human ones, a reflection of our own essential humanity.

Dog lovers and literary groupies alike will adore Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton and Emily Bronte. This intimate glimpse of famous writers reveals brilliant, often reclusive and sometimes unbalanced artists who used beloved pets as confessors, companions, muses and even emotional stand-ins. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog Flush was her constant companion when he wasn’t being snatched by the dognappers common in 19th-century London. Flush became a literary go-between and romantic rival when the dashing Robert Browning came to call; he bit Browning twice, but they made up while walking the streets of Italy. Emily Bronte, who grew up to write the wild and disturbing Wuthering Heights, displayed disturbing behavior as a young girl by beating the family’s mastiff, then nursing its wounds. Edith Wharton posed with two Chihuahuas perched on her shoulders and obsessed over an annoying pack of Pekinese to avoid her husband’s infidelities and mental illness. Virginia Woolf described her purebred puppy as an angel of light who made her husband believe in God, perhaps counterbalancing the fact that the dog wet the floor eight times in one day. And Carlo the Newfoundland was the only audience for the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson, who insisted that she was more interested in Carlo’s approval than writing to please the public. When the dog died, Dickinson’s brief note to a friend was as poignant as any of her poems. Carlo died, she wrote. Would you instruct me now?

<b>Day the Earth didn’t stand still</b> On December 16, 1811, around 2:15 a.m., the ground below the frontier town of New Madrid, located in present-day Missouri, began to move. With a sound equated to cannon fire, the Earth heaved, starting a chain reaction of destruction and devastation that would alter not only the lives of those within its reach, but also the politics and landscape of the region. Like the Great Comet of 1811 that preceded it, the New Madrid Earthquakes which continued well into April 1812 would be interpreted by settler and native alike as a portent of great change. Among other repercussions, the earthquakes may have spurred the War of 1812, the destruction and relocation of the Native American tribes, and the eventual election of one of the most colorful presidents in American history Andrew Jackson.

Jay Feldman’s <b>When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder and the New Madrid Earthquakes</b> is a fascinating narrative, offering just enough science to explain what happened without overwhelming the casual reader. The book examines the quakes not only for their remarkable physical power (the effects were felt as far away as New England, cracking the ice covering Chesapeake Bay in one instance), but for their impact on people. Among other things, the earthquakes uncovered a gruesome murder, encouraged the Creek nation to rise against the white settlers of present-day Alabama, and, eventually, exposed a modern-day earthquake expert as a vainglorious fraud.

Within these pages, you will meet characters both larger than life and seemingly cast out of time, from the charismatic Shawnee leader Tecumseh to the conniving governor of Ohio, William Henry Harrison, to the remarkably liberated Lydia Roosevelt, who defied convention to undertake two perilous journeys on the Mississippi both while pregnant to promote steamboat travel. You will meet traitors, heroes, swindlers, and saints and sometimes it’s hard to decide which is which. <b>When the Mississippi Ran Backwards</b> is both a study of nature, in all her incomprehensible power, and the nature of man, and how we respond when our world turns suddenly chaotic. <i>Howard Shirley is a writer in Franklin, Tennessee.</i>

After you treat yourself to horticulture writer Amy Stewart’s latest exposŽ, Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers, you’ll never see a rose or any other bloom that you purchase to adorn your home or brighten your spirits in quite the same way again. Stewart, an enthusiastic gardener and award-winning journalist who delved underground to explicate the importance of earthworms (The Earth Moved), now trains her attention on the billion-dollar industry in which a single flower is seen as a unit of profit. For a year, she travels the world, from America’s left coast to its right, from equatorial Ecuador to Amsterdam, to investigate the fundamentals of the cut-flower business. Who knew that behind the cultivation of a lush lily, romantic red rose or a cool creamy tulip is a story riddled with human suffering, sexual harassment, greed and intrigue? In a potent medium of quirky wit, incisive reporting and occasionally breathtaking prose, Stewart grows her strange and riveting tale. From a heart-rending portrait of the brilliant, eventually impoverished inventor of the famous Star Gazer lily, to profiles of more prosperous growers and revelations of the often appalling working conditions found in foreign flower operations, Stewart follows the life of a flower from its initial breeding to the day it ends up in a vase. She observes the famous Dutch flower auctions, and goes behind the scenes at the Miami airport as flowers are funneled, fumigated and flown to their final retail destinations. Flower Confidential is a page-turner: I read avidly to its end, madly curious to know if, after all she had witnessed, Stewart’s floral romanticism remained. In the book’s ironically captivating epilogue, I found out. But I’m not telling.

Alison Hood writes from San Rafael, California.

Thomas Marent has been capturing the beauties of the rainforest with his Nikon for 16 years, and now the best of his life’s work has been collected in a new coffee table book, titled simply Rainforest, written with Ben Morgan. Marent’s book steers clear of rainforest politics in favor of gorgeous full-page, full-color photos of its wonders. Perhaps the book’s most remarkable achievement is the minutia: close-up photos of stick insects, leaf hoppers, grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars and other creatures that might escape the attention of other rainforest travelers. Marent’s astonishing photos of the rare walking leaf an insect that has evolved to mimic a fallen autumn leaf nearly to perfection are accompanied by a single paragraph explaining that the photographer had been looking for such an insect for 10 years. Most thinking people already know that the dwindling rainforests of the world are treasure troves of biological diversity, but somehow the photos of six different varieties of strawberry frog make that more real for those who live outside the canopy. The book comes with a CD of rainforest sounds.

The fact that weather can affect everything from creaky joints to the appearance of celestial bodies is old news. But what about the effect of weather on culture, politics, language? Author Laura Lee explores the connection between Mother Nature and turning points of the human experience in Blame It on the Rain: How the Weather Has Changed History. Lee skips around from the Spanish Armada to the 1948 U.S. presidential race to the building of Noah’s Ark, sharing fascinating tidbits in the humorous style she’s brought to earlier careers as a DJ and comedian, as well as to her 11 previous books.

Lee discusses how high summer temperatures contributed to the 1967 Detroit riots, and how fluctuations during the Little Ice Age (around 1350 to 1850 A.D.) led not only to witch hunts in Europe, but may have also nurtured the singular wood that Stradivarius used in creating his string masterpieces. She revisits the connection between the most popular of Edvard Munch’s Scream paintings and the 1883 eruption on Krakatoa, and reflects on the strategic importance of climate.

Blame It on the Rain is a full of short dare one say breezy chapters in which Lee sets the scene as in a blockbuster summer disaster movie, then condenses long threads of history into little summaries that wrap up as neatly and quirkily as a Fractured Fairy Tale. Lee’s tone can be a bit too smart-alecky at times, but her take on history is always refreshing and thought-provoking.

To Georgia residents, Savannah Electric billboards featuring white pelicans or cute frogs are a familiar sight. The message is clear: Savannah Electric and its parent, the Southern Company, are friends to nature and beauty. The truth, however, is a little more complex: Behind all that (relatively) cheap and reliable power is a string of coal processing plants which are anything but friendly to the environment. The hidden truth about coal the dangers to miners, health risks from air pollution and accumulating greenhouse gases is what Jeff Goodell is after in his groundbreaking book, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future. Goodell explores not only the familiar risks black lung and collapsing mines but also those coal hazards that rarely make it into our collective unconscious: mountain-top removals that destroy nearby residential communities and uncontained carbon dioxide emissions that accelerate global warming. He also delves into the politics of coal and how this nearly invisible resource is also an invisible force in elections at every level; for example Goodell makes a convincing case that coal barons in West Virginia bought a historically democratic voting state for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. Goodell specifically targets the Southern Company, which is a conspicuous player in state and national politics, spending more than $25 million in federal lobbying from 2001 to 2004. For comparison’s sake, Goodell notes that other comparable power companies, like American Electric, spent less than $5 million during the same period. Goodell also uncovers the real story behind Bush’s failure to curb carbon dioxide emissions, as he clearly promised to do while campaigning. Big Coal points an indicting finger at Vice President Dick Cheney who, Goodell speculates, did some behind-the-scenes finagling among prominent senators to keep America’s signature off the international Kyoto Treaty. But the picture Goodell paints is not one of inevitable disaster. The technology to process coal without releasing so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is already available. It’s just a matter of admitting that short-term profit losses will be more than compensated by the health of our lungs and the lungs of the planet. Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

<b>Gore’s sobering view of global warming</b> Former Vice President Al Gore’s latest treatise on global warming, <b>An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It</b>, is a companion volume to the well-received documentary. As such, it is basically a picture book: On page 42, for example, you see a snow-covered Mount Kilimanjaro in 1970 next to a 2000 photo in which the mountain has roughly half as much snow. Turn the page and you see a mostly-naked Kilimanjaro with a few dwindling snow patches, snapped this year. Folks who don’t have the know-how or patience to follow the chain of events that links carbon dioxide emissions to the preternatural strength of Hurricane Katrina may have an easier time absorbing the problem through Gore’s pictorial presentation of melting mountain glaciers and fragmenting ice shelves. BIG print and lots of smart graphics help too. Gore devotes two pages to the 48 Nobel Prize winners (scientists all) who signed a strongly worded petition accusing President George W. Bush of ignoring good science and threatening the earth’s future. <b>An Inconvenient Truth</b> raises the obvious question: Is this just Gore gearing up for another crack at the presidency? He says not: At first, I thought I might run for president again, he writes, but over the last several years I have discovered that there are other ways to serve, and that I am really enjoying them. And yet, <b>An Inconvenient Truth</b> may renew the sense of loss that Gore’s supporters felt six years ago. His book has all the personal warmth that his campaign supposedly lacked. He talks openly about the tragedies and close calls that shaped his emotional life the near death of his son and the early death of a beloved sister, whose cigarette habit and consequent lung cancer influenced the Gore family to get out of the tobacco business. And the many photos of himself as a young husband and father, kayaking and camping with his family in the wilderness, convey a portrait one that is hard to fake of someone who genuinely values the natural world.