Last night I had the strangest dream. I was in a bookstore, a large one, where all the books were about science. It was a science lover’s dream, with technical reference books of all kinds, scientific classics by Galileo, Newton, and Darwin, books on geology, physical geography, physics, chemistry, anatomy, neurophysiology, cosmology, ecology – and the hugest section of books on evolution I had ever seen, books running all the way from Erasmus Darwin through to Gunter Wagner. Some of the books were clearly aimed at scientific specialists, other aimed more at lay people. And the prices were to die for. In the dream, I was heaping books into a shopping cart, and my bill was already headed for over $1,000.00. I remember thinking I would have to stop at Costco and pick up a new bookshelf to house everything.
This store also had the biggest section of children’s books on science that I had ever seen. It had colorful books of every size and shape, books for all ages, even little pop-up books for the very young. I recognized, with joy, out-of-print series I had read in my youth: the How and Why books, the All About books, and so on. After a sentimental journey flipping through those old volumes, I wandered into the section for children’s books on animals. I saw books on Ants and Bees, on Creatures of the Desert, on Animals of the Jungle, on Aardvarks, on Octopuses… Some of these books, I knew to have actually existed, but others appeared to be figments of imagination conjured up by my dream.
But then I came upon one with a striking cover, with a title I did not know, but with authors I did know, and with a publisher whose name was vaguely familiar. I was so intrigued by it that its cover became engraved upon my memory, and I could recall it vividly even after I awoke. It seemed important to me to preserve the memory, so I reconstructed the cover as well as I could. I thought I would share it with everyone here.
Is this a book that already exists? Or a book that is real, but yet to be published? Or the wild imaginings of my unconscious mind? I leave it to the readers of Peaceful Science to decide:
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