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The End Of Night: Searching For Natural Darkness In An Age Of Artificial Light (2013)

by Paul Bogard(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0316182907 (ISBN13: 9780316182904)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

review 1: I knew light pollution was a bad thing, but had never given it much more thought. This book examines it from all sorts of angles, interviewing astronomers, ecologists, shift workers, medics, medics who are shift workers, lighting experts, writers, national park managers. There's even a whole interview about the biblical interpretation of darkness (which I resorted to skimming). Also the author visits a range of sites, working his way down from the brightest, Las Vegas. to the darkest. Accordingly the book's chapters start at 9, the brightest on the "Bortle scale" of light pollution and end at 1, which is a nice touch.The trips and interviews are a great research project and a very interesting read. It's scary in places - there's a quote that exposure to light at night may ... morebe this generation's health equivalent of smoking. But it's reasonably optimistic too - there's emerging technology to reduce light pollution, and the cost savings mean it might actually be implemented. My only complaint is that there's a bit too much material and it starts to covers the same ground too often.
review 2: Well written, in some points beautifully lyrical on the value of darkness and the night sky, but missing something in its lack of practical active steps the reader can take, or even some sense of a suggestion for how to maintain natural darkness on a larger scale. The research on melatonin production natural light and health was all new to me, and fascinating. (The typo on artist James Turrell (NOT James Terrell) in the last couple sentences of the book made me cringe.) less

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