Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

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Vicki and London and I were in downtown Los Angeles for a friend's
wedding on Dec. 30, and afterward we visited The Last Bookstore.
Embarrassingly, even though I'm LA-adjacent, I had not been before. I
believe the mounted woolly mammoth visible in the far corner was one of
the last ones to be shot in the LA Basin.

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The Last Bookstore is an awesome place, with two floors of new and used
books, records, comics, and related esoterica. Made me nostalgic for
Logos in downtown Santa Cruz, which sadly closed shop this past summer.

The visit was a momentous occasion for me. Although my book with Mark
Hallett has been out for almost a year and a half now, and many copies
have passed through my hands at [book
signings](https://svpow.com/2017/07/06/tutorial-33-checklist-for-a-book-signing/),
I'd never run into one out in the wild.

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I quickly and quietly did a guerilla signing, and left the book on the
shelf. And I intend to keep doing them, as often as I run into unsigned
copies. As a public service message, if you ever find a copy of the book
out in the world that looks like it's been signed by me, it's probably
legit (send me a pic or post in the comments if you have doubts). Since
I'm inflicting these on an unsuspecting public, if you get stuck with a
signed copy but would prefer otherwise, let me know and I'll swap a
fresh book for your vandalized one.

I also did okay finding books for myself. I got two: *On a Piece of
Chalk*, by Thomas Henry Huxley, and *The Anatomy of the Salamander*, by
Eric T.B. Francis.

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*On a Piece of Chalk* is a legendary bit of natural history. In 1868,
T.H. Huxley gave a public lecture with that title to the working folk of
Norwich, during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science. A piece of chalk was both his physical tool and his subject,
which he used to illustrate, literally and figuratively, the evidence
for uniformitarian stratigraphy and biological evolution. Huxley's talk
has been printed twice: later in 1868 by *Macmillan's Magazine* of
London, and in a nice hardback in 1967 by Charles Scribner's Sons of New
York. I found a copy of the latter for five bucks, which I note is the
going rate for [used
copies](https://www.amazon.com/Piece-Chalk-Science-Classic/dp/B0006BQHM8/)
on Amazon. But I can't actually find any evidence that my copy has been
used. It appears to be utterly pristine, and I suspect it may be [New
Old Stock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_old_stock).

If you don't own a copy of this wonderful book, you should drop what
you're doing, acquire one, and read it. If you're reading this blog, you
probably know Huxley's punchline. But the way Huxley draws the reader
in, illustrates his points with clear and compelling examples, and
builds his argument steadily outward, from a piece of chalk to the
vertiginous spectacle of deep time, is masterful in both concept and
execution.

I know less about the salamander anatomy book, but I snagged it anyway.
It's a reprint of an original 1934 text, published in 2002 by the
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. Reproduction quality
is excellent, especially of the numerous and minutely detailed plates. I
picked up the book for two reasons: one, because I'm getting
progressively more interested in the [peripheral nervous
systems](https://svpow.com/category/nervous-system/) of nonhuman
tetrapods, and two, because I have a peculiar fetish for good
illustrations of the recurrent largyneal nerve, especially in
short-necked animals ([for
example](https://svpow.com/2016/08/22/path-of-the-recurrent-laryngeal-nerve-in-frogs-giraffes-and-elasmosaurs/)).
I did not come away disappointed.

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The moral of the story? Stay alert for good natural history writing. I
find that older natural history books turn up in used bookstores pretty
regularly, and it's possible to grow your library inexpensively if you
are patient. And support your local bookstore, while it's still there to
support.


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Chalk, salamanders, and sauropods at The Last Bookstore

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That is all.


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Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Chalk, salamanders, and sauropods at The Last Bookstore

This is awesome