I read most of this book, Wayfinding: The science and mystery of how humans navigate the world. It came out in 2019, and I started reading it at some point during COVID. I lost interest in the middle of the book, since it started talking about “Dreamtime cartography,” dreaming tracks, and dream songlines from aboriginal cultures in Australia. Then, in the last couple of days, I found the last two or three chapters to be more interesting as the author discusses impacts on global warming, impact of technology like GPS on our wayfinding skills, and a good concluding chapter as an epilogue. I did like the chapters on the wayfinding of cultures in the SE Pacific Islanders and in Northern Canadian native North-Americans. She also did a good job of explaining how the brain worked on wayfinding.

The other book that I will probably never finish is the Pencil: A history of design and circumstance. I had read another book by Henry Petroski, but I just could not get through this one. I do like reading about the history of the pencil, but this was sort of boring. I made it to page 95 out of 434 pages.