Just Couldn’t Finish Reading: Biomimicry – Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine M Benyus (FP: 1997) [297pp] 

My first (and hopefully last!) DNF of the Year. This was really quite disappointing as I’d been looking forward to reading this for a while. Biomimicry – using lessons from nature to improve or even design from the ground up better machines or processes – is a great way to short-cut the design process. Afterall, nature has been perfecting its processes for a LONG time. So, I was expecting things on solar cells and stuff (which are actually pictured on the cover) and much else besides. It started out OK and I actually enjoyed (mostly) the first chapter on farming except for the nagging feeling that the ideas being discussed just wouldn’t work in the real world!  

But what really turned me off – or rather made me increasingly reluctant to pick this up and engage further – were two things. Firstly, I felt that the author stayed far too long in the weeds – even if that was quite appropriate in the farming section – rather than discussing the ideas and fundamental underpinning of the viewpoint. Second, I found that the age of the book – which to be honest isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things – meant that her enthusiasm over a bit of technology was often redundant because it had either been shown to be a bad idea, had been superseded by something else or had been adopted as a standard and so had faded into the background.  

So, after 120 pages, I gave in and the DNF guillotine came down. Back in the day I’d give a book 50 pages before I’d DNF it (although sometimes it was a LOT less than that!). I think 120 pages is giving it a good go, so I’m not feeling guilty in any way, just disappointed. On to bigger and better things...