What We Are Reading Today: ‘Costa Rica’s Rainforests’

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Updated 12 October 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Costa Rica’s Rainforests’

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  • This lavishly illustrated book provides a fascinating, up-to-date, and accessible introduction to the natural history of this forest and its flowering plants

Author: SCOTT WESLEY SHUMWAY

The lowland rainforest of Costa Rica is one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet.

This lavishly illustrated book provides a fascinating, up-to-date, and accessible introduction to the natural history of this forest and its flowering plants, ferns, fungi, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fishes, and insects.

The book focuses on La Selva Research Station, one of the best-studied tropical forests in the world, but it applies to all of Costa Rica’s lowland rainforests and the species it covers are common throughout much of Central America and the Neotropics.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Gaslighting’ by Kate Abramson

What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Gaslighting’ by Kate Abramson
Updated 04 November 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Gaslighting’ by Kate Abramson

What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Gaslighting’ by Kate Abramson

“Gaslighting” is suddenly in everyone’s vocabulary. It’s written about, talked about, tweeted about, even sung about it.

It’s become shorthand for being manipulated by someone who insists that up is down, hot is cold, dark is light—someone who isn’t just lying about such things, but trying to drive you crazy.

The term has its origins in a 1944 film in which a husband does exactly that to his wife, his crazy-making efforts symbolized by the rise and fall of the gaslights in their home. Kate Abramson examines gaslighting from a philosophical perspective, investigating it as a distinctive moral phenomenon.