Many years ago, I learned through experience that when I wanted to learn about a subject that was more or less wholly new to me that one of the best ways to begin was to see if Oxford University Press had included a volume about it in their Very Short Introductions series. Now numbering over three-hundred-fifty volumes, the VSI series provides concise, “what-you-really-need-to-know” explanations of subjects ranging from Advertising to Writing and Script.
Of course for the purposes of The Well-read Naturalist, it is the volumes of the series that address natural history subjects that are of particular interest. One of the most recent of these, The Antarctic by Klaus Dodds, was published in August of 2012. As Professor Dodds covers the “scientific, historical, cultural, and political significance” of the continent, I am very much looking forward to discovering more about this least explored of all the world’s land masses.
