Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps by Seirian Sumner

I read about this book in a thumbnail description in the The New Yorker, and while I am the target audience for this book--someone who is concerned about pollinators, ecology, and the survival of the world, yet who detests wasps--I wasn't sure this book was up my alley. The author is quite learned--she is an entomologist and behavioral ecologist, and a professor at University College London, and she spends the whole of the book trying to charm her readers into realizing that the pesky, whirring, anxiety-provoking yellow jackets and other species of wasps that torment us at most inopportune moments, are not mischievous villains so much as highly underestimated and misunderstood philanthropists Her invocations of wasp characteristics, behavior, social life and culture sparkle with curiosities and insights and she suggests, in an entertaining rather than scholarly manner, that we need to re-examine our relationships with wasps in particular and with nature in general. Doing so would have profound consequences in an age when technological innovations continue to displace and disrupt the lives of wasps and other species. This compelling account of nature’s coherent beauty teaches that it is time for the utilitarian attitude toward nature to be replaced with appreciation and conservation if we are to survive a rapidly warming planet.