These are beautiful stories that are all informed in some way by science and nature. Wish the final novella "Ship Fever" had been expanded to novel length. I hope to read more by this author. ( )

The first story in this collection, 'The Behavior of the Hawkweeds', was in Best American Short Stories, where I read it and immediately sought out more by Andrea Barrett. I wasn't disappointed with this book.

In 'Rare Bird', it's 1762 and we meet Sarah Anne, "who inherited her father's brains but Christopher [her brother] inherited everything else". She's intelligent, single, interested in science and learning but held back by being a woman. She does find ways to write and to experiment, and does manage to change her situation in an interesting way.

The novella that gives this book its title is a story of the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. It seems to end well for a few people who make their way to Canada, but I did not read every part of it.
My favorite was 'The Marburg Sisters', about Rose and Bianca, and is in turns realistic, surreal, and philosophical as they grow to adulthood, go their separate ways, meet again in mid-twentieth century America, then once more part, but remain still connected.

Barrett writes with a sure hand, giving us fiction that is easy to believe is all truth.
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A fellow bus-rider lent me this book to break up the non-fiction I wasn't getting through in my reading (slow reading? non-reading?) of [book: Democracy in America]. I tore through it in a couple of days; really couldn't put it down!
Author Andrea Barrett includes several short stories in this volume, all with a historical, naturalist/science bend to them. Whether we discover a connection with Mendel or Linnaeus or ponder the same mysteries they did, we get inserted into their lives in an interesting way. Or perhaps a better way to say it would be that we find the lives of the stories' characters intertwined with the historical figure.
The title story, Ship Fever follows some of the events of the Potato Famine in that we join a young doctor on a Canadian island while the ships empty sick Irish refugees onto shore.
None of the stories are very uplifting. None of the characters live "happily ever after" and many are fairly miserable. Many of the stories, perhaps even all of them, lack closure; they just end when they do—not really hanging, but just ended and not resolved. (Please note this is not criticism, just a comment on an interesting style that isn't completely to my taste.)
Perhaps only our visit with Linnaeus could be considered "happy". As he reviews his colleagues, acquaintances and students and their achievements, we find that he isn't unfulfilled but strangely content. Even in the limitations brought on by his stroke, he appears satisfied with the events of his life. (Only later do I find out about his faith.)
Overall, it is a good book and one I am glad to have read. ( )

The common thread through all of these stories is science, hard science often involving what were at one point in time true scientific mysteries or an individual who played a significant role in a scientific discovery or endeavor. The title story, which was closer to a novella, describes the efforts by Canadians to quarantine and provide medical attention to Irish emigrants arriving on coffin ships in an effort to escape the Irish potato famine. The conditions described on the ships are horrific, while the efforts to provide medical care, while often failing, were heroic. Although each story in the book is based on a scientific challenge or pursuit, there is always a human element that is just as engaging and the two together make each story unique. ( )

Ocho relatos y una novela corta todos enlazados por el tema científico y las relaciones personales. En "El discípulo inglés" ssistimos a los últimos días de Linneo, el hombre que nombró a todos los seres; en "Rara avis" nos metemos en la piel de una mujer con talento científico atrapada en una sociedad que la encadenaba a un papel tradicional; la novela corta "La fiebre negra" nos traslada a un desastre humanitario del siglo XIX: la hambruna irlandesa producida por la roya de la patata y la codicia de los terratenientes ingleses. Miles de irlandeses cruzan el Atlántico hacinados en barcos. El tifus hace estragos. El foco se pone en un médico voluntario canadiense que ayuda a los irlandeses en una pequeña isla en Cánada donde los enfermos pasan la cuarentena en condiciones muy duras y mueren a centenares. ( )