Your backyard animal adventure

Hovering hummingbirds, colorful salamanders, the occasional porcupine and more neighborhood wildlife

Curious about the wildlife you’ve seen during your neighborhood hikes and backyard hangouts? Rebecca Suomala, a biologist for New Hampshire Audubon, and Lindsay Webb, wildlife educator for New Hampshire Fish and Game, shared fun facts about 22 birds, insects, mammals and reptiles you might see in the nature around you.

By Matt Ingersoll & Angie Sykeny

Birds

Blackpoll warbler
Most likely seen during the summer into early September, especially in spruce-fir forests
“Blackpoll,” Suomala said, refers to the black cap of this bird seen in males, similar to that of a chickadee or a goldfinch. Blackpoll warblers are characterized by their white breasts, black streaks and yellow feet. They also weigh less than half an ounce. Beginning in September, these birds make long-distance migrations, flying non-stop over the Atlantic Ocean for nearly 2,000 miles before reaching their wintering grounds in South America.

Northern cardinal
Most commonly seen at lower elevations
According to Suomala, the northern cardinal is the only species of cardinal you’ll find in North America. Over the past several decades the species has extended its range farther north, and it’s now found almost everywhere in the Granite State except in higher elevations. Males are bright red with a fat red bill, while females are a brownish color with red highlights and an orange-red bill. The northern cardinal is a year-round, non-migrating resident of New Hampshire.

Ruby-throated hummingbird
Most likely seen during the summer into early September
At around three to three-and-a-half inches long, the ruby-throated hummingbird, Suomala said, is the smallest bird that can be found in New Hampshire. It makes its home in the Northeast in the summer before migrating to Central America in the winter. Males have a bright red throat with feathers that are reflective in the sunlight. These birds feed on nectar from honeysuckle plants and cardinal flowers. According to Suomala, this hummingbird’s wings can flap up to 53 times per second and its heartbeat rests at 250 times per minute. A male can go into a dive at more than 60 miles per hour.

Insects

Green darner dragonfly
Most likely seen in your backyard if you live on or near a body of water
Green darners are among the largest dragonflies you’ll see in the Granite State, growing up to three inches long, about the size of a hummingbird, with a wingspan of another three inches, Suomala said. You’re most likely to see them around water — these dragonflies migrate to the north in the spring and south in the fall. Females will typically lay their eggs on vegetation in or near the water. In its nymph phase (or larva phase) it lives entirely underwater, feeding on insects, tadpoles and small fish, before the dragonfly emerges out of the water as an adult.

Luna moth
Not likely to see them often; your best chances are at night, or around big lights, in June or July, when the adults emerge from their cocoons
These bright green moths, according to Suomala, are commonly known as giant silk moths because of their size, which can be as large as seven inches with a wingspan of four-and-a-half inches. They used to be very common in New Hampshire, but their population has since declined. If you live in a city you’re less likely to see them, because the caterpillars feed on trees like white birches and hickories. Caterpillars will eat all summer before they spin a cocoon, where they spend the winter before emerging in June or July.

Monarch butterfly
Very likely to see them at the peak of summertime and into the early fall
Monarch butterflies are characterized by their large orange and black markings. According to Suomala, they spend their winters in Mexico, but the same butterflies don’t make it all the way back up north. In fact, it takes about three generations for them to return to New Hampshire in the summer. The caterpillars feed on milkweed and eventually make a chrysalis, which takes them about 8 to 15 days to hatch from.

Large mammals

Black bear
Common, with an increasing population throughout New Hampshire.
Black bears are omnivores, eating with the seasons whatever they can find. “They have a great memory and sense of smell, so keep your trash locked up tight and reduce other bear food sources such as pet food, bird seed, and keep your grill cleaned up and secured,” Webb said.

Bobcat
Sightings have been on the rise in recent years, especially in the southern part of the state
According to Webb, the bobcat gets its name from its “bobbed” tail, which is shorter than the tails on most domesticated cats. The average length of a bobcat tail is around six inches but can reach up to 10 inches. A mother bobcat may raise a litter of two to four kittens in the spring. Elusive and lovers of solitude, these nocturnal feline predators are always on the hunt for rabbits, squirrels, mice, chipmunks and birds, Webb said, adding that they can swim and have little hesitation going into the water in pursuit of their prey.

Moose
Reside throughout New Hampshire, but are most commonly seen in the northern part of the state
Moose are active all day but do most of their moving around in the early morning or late afternoon, when the temperatures are cooler. They’re also, according to Webb, “pretty good swimmers.” “They love to feed on wetland plants and will dive down under the water to get at aquatic vegetation,” she said.

White-tailed deer
Common throughout New Hampshire in a variety of habitats, such as fields, farms, neighborhoods and woodlands
Though white-tailed deer prefer to hide out in the woods, they often make an appearance along woodland edges of towns and cities and in many farming communities. “In the summer, you may be lucky to see a fawn curled up in some tall grass or in a hidden spot in the woods,” Webb said. “Don’t be alarmed; this young one is not abandoned. Fawns are left alone for long periods of time while their mother goes off to feed and lead predators away, but she will come back for her fawn.”

Reptiles and amphibians

Gray treefrog
Much more likely to be heard than seen
Despite their name, gray treefrogs have the ability to change their color to match their background, from black to almost white or even a greenish-gray. Suomala said you can identify them by their trilling call at night. They are year-round natives of New Hampshire, hibernating underground. In fact, about 40 percent of a gray treefrog’s body can freeze — it can survive freezing temperatures by producing its own glycerol that’s circulated through its bloodstream and vital organs.

Painted turtle
This is the most commonly found species of turtle in the state
You can find painted turtles statewide, anywhere there are ponds. They reach a maximum length of just over seven inches; according Suomala, their sexual maturity is determined by the length of their shell, not by how old they are. Males require a length of at least three inches before they can reproduce, whereas for females, the required length of their shell is about four inches. If you see a turtle moving away from a pond, don’t move it in the direction of the water; Suomala said this is because female turtles are moving toward an area with sand or loose soil to lay their eggs. Painted turtles are also year-round residents of the Granite State, hibernating below the mud in the bottom of ponds.

Red eft salamander
Most likely found in damp, rainy conditions
Also known as the red-spotted newt, this amphibian has two different stages, according to Suomala — a water stage where it is characterized by its olive-green color with red spots, and a land stage, where it’s a bright orange-red color. You’ll most likely see them on land if you’re walking on a trail just after it has rained, she said. The female will lay its eggs underwater. Once the salamander reaches the land stage, it spends the rest of its life that way, for about two to three years.

Small mammals

Beaver
Common throughout New Hampshire in ponds, lakes and other wetlands
“If you’re lucky to have a lake or pond in your backyard, beavers might be a common sight for you,” Webb said, adding that, if you see one beaver, a whole family, consisting of anywhere from three to eight beavers, probably isn’t too far away. They can be difficult to spot as their dark brown fur blends in well with dark water, but there is “no mistaking the ‘slap’ of their tail when they feel threatened,” Webb said. Beavers leave a lot of clear evidence of their presence, including chewed stumps along the edges of bodies of water; stick dams that hold back water, creating deeper ponds; and stick lodges that extend down into the water. They may also build their lodges on islands or along the shore.

Eastern chipmunk
Common throughout New Hampshire, in woodland edges and forests
Though similar to squirrels, chipmunks can be differentiated by their size — they are a bit smaller than squirrels — and by their coloring, which includes brown fur with black and white stripes that run down their backs. According to Webb, chipmunks also have extra skin in their cheeks, allowing them to expand their mouths to carry more food back to their burrows. They often build their burrows at the base of a tree or under a stone wall. In the winter they spend most of their time sleeping, waking up every few days to eat from their stockpile of food. In a good year, when food is abundant, chipmunks can produce up to two litters of pups. “If you see a lot of chipmunks this year, you can bet that food availability was really high the previous year,” Webb said.

Eastern cottontail
Common in southern New Hampshire, often seen nibbling on clover and grass in backyards and parks
Eastern cottontails have multiple litters a year. In New Hampshire, they can have up to four or five. The mother cottontail builds a small shallow nest in the grass, well-disguised, with dead fern leaves covering the hole. “She only visits [the nest] a few times a day, so if you find a nest of kits — baby cottontails — just leave them be,” Webb said. “They are not abandoned; their mother will be back soon.” A rarer species of cottontail, the New England cottontail, can also be seen within a smaller range, restricted to the southern part of the state.

Eastern gray squirrel
Common throughout most of New Hampshire in woods and neighborhoods with plenty of deciduous trees
While gray squirrels have, as their name implies, mostly gray fur, there can be some variations in color. “Melanistic gray squirrels are black in coloration and albinistic gray squirrels look white,” Webb said. “Sometimes, small localized populations of black squirrels show up and persist for a few years. Gray squirrels often bury more acorns and seeds than they can recover, facilitating seed dispersal and resulting in the growth of many new trees every year.

Fisher
Most likely found in forested areas
Fishers — or “fisher cats,” if you prefer — are not actually cats. According to Suomala, they’re part of the mustelid (or weasel) family, with brown fur, a long tail and a pointed nose. They have a reputation for emitting a loud, caterwauling scream. But in reality, Suomala said, this sound is more likely made by a fox, while fishers are generally silent, instead occasionally making low chuckling or hissing noises. They’re the only animal in the state that regularly targets porcupines.

North American porcupine
Most likely seen in forested areas, at night
One of nearly two dozen species of porcupines throughout the world, the North American porcupine is found throughout New Hampshire. According to NH Wildlife Journal, a publication from New Hampshire Fish & Game, porcupines are large rodents covered in around 30,000 sharp quills. These quills, Suomala said, are hollow hairs with barbed tips made of keratin. Some people believe porcupines have the ability to shoot or throw their quills. In reality, Suomala said, this is not the case, although they can raise their quills in self-defense. Porcupines are nocturnal animals that feed on woody vegetation. They do not hibernate in the winter.

Raccoon
Common throughout New Hampshire, in wetlands, woods, farmlands and neighborhoods
Raccoons often do their food hunting, with much success, in human-populated areas and claim their den sites under porches and sheds. In fact, raccoon populations tend to be higher in cities than in their natural woodland and forest habitats. “Raccoons have easily adapted to the presence of humans and will gladly check your trash can for scraps of food,” Webb said. “[If] you’re battling a raccoon family this summer, keep your trash locked up tight or store it in a secure building instead of outside.”

Red squirrel
Common throughout New Hampshire in forests with plenty of coniferous trees
“These chattery squirrels are quick to let you know when you are bothering them with their red bushy tails raised, announcing themselves with loud trills, chatters and chips,” Webb said. Surviving on food they stashed during the winter months, the squirrels often forget to dig up all of their hidden seeds and nuts each year, which then grow into trees.

Vole
Especially likely to be found if you have a garden in your backyard
Not to be confused with moles, voles are small rodents that are experiencing a population boom in New Hampshire right now, according to Suomala. They look similar to mice, except they have smaller eyes and smaller ears. Voles are a nuisance in backyard gardens and orchards, but are actually a key food source for large birds like hawks and owls, as well as foxes and coyotes, she said. There are two types — meadow voles, and pine voles, which are slightly smaller, lighter in color and have a shorter tail than meadow voles. One female vole can produce four to eight litters per year, Suomala said, with about five young per litter.

Signs of Life 20/07/16

All quotes are from The Friendly Persuasion, by Jessamyn West, born July 18, 1902.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22) Eliza always said Labe never put a foot out of bed until he heard her start to scrape the gravy skillet. Don’t eat gravy for breakfast.

Leo (July 23 – Aug. 22) The town blazed under the July sun; it throbbed with the heat of the season — and the heat of fear and excitement and wonder and resolution. At first Josh thought it was as alive as he had seen it for an August fair or Fourth of July celebration. Outdoor dining is nice.

Virgo (Aug. 23 – Sept. 22) This hour, this house, this season. All was as it should be. It was one of those contented peaks a woman reaches and clings to. Not a thing clamoring to be done, not so much as a piece of lint beneath the hired man’s bed to keep the mind from resting. … The sitting room was like a welcoming hand: chairs saying, Sit and rock; flower saying, Sniff and smell. Eliza sat and rocked. She rose and sniffed and savored. She did not see that anything could be bettered. Ahhhhhh.

Libra (Sept. 23 – Oct. 22) Jess pined for music, though it would be hard to say how he’d come by any such longing. Put your favorites on repeat.

Scorpio (Oct. 23 – Nov. 21) No horse had ever looked so much like traveling and had traveled so much like standing still. Save a horse, ride a bicycle.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 21) Jess leaped down into the cellar, took the box, turned it round and round. ‘An old-timer,’ he said. ‘A box of the kind they used to carry maps and deeds in, a place of safe-keeping for what was treasured.’ Is your smartphone charged?

Capricorn (Dec. 22 – Jan. 19) Eliza shut the door firmly behind her and heard no more. She sat again in the sitting room, she rocked … but she got no pleasure from it. Perfection was a hollow thing after all. It’s an illusion.

Aquarius (Jan. 20 – Feb. 18) Old Lafe was not a man to hold a grudge and Eliza hadn’t burned his only hat. He was soon back, wearing, so far as Eliza could see, the egg container’s twin, ready to further instruct and edify. There’s always another hat.

Pisces (Feb. 19 – March 20) It was an in-between time: afternoon bygone, night not yet come, neither summer, nor fall. You can make of it whatever you want!

Aries (March 21 – April 19) Eliza lifted her breakfast bell to ring, then let arm and soundless bell drop to her side. She felt a profound reluctance to disturb in any way the morning quiet. Avoid chaos.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20) But the day she rode through was more to Mattie than her destination. The roses smell nice.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20) Enoch was instantly equipped, for the most part, with feelings on every subject. Feelings can change.

The Music Roundup 20/07/16

• Dance night: While pulsing music can’t be experienced on a packed dance floor, Velvet Rope offers a socially distanced night of rhythm sensations. Presented by talent collective Pangea, the evening promises deep house and tech with four DJs (a resident and three guests), and ample space to dance. It’s the first in what they hope will be a regular series of events; the next is set for July 24. Friday, July 17, 9 p.m., Jewel Music Venue, 61 Canal St., Manchester, facebook.com/Pangea-110546673851223.

• Fiddle time: One of the busier musicians during quarantine, Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki frequently brought his wife and kids to online shows, which provided many charming moments. The fiddler extraordinaire and his trio play an outdoor show that’s part of a Concert on the Lawn Series. Tirrell-Wysocki excels at Celtic-Irish music, but his talents range across the spectrum, and he sings, too. Saturday, July 18, 6:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 201 North Road, Brentwood, facebook.com/firstbaptistbrentwoodnh.

• Folk affair: While the venue remains idle, Bank of NH Stage is hosting shows, including Kimayo, a singer, songwriter and activist. The al fresco performance happens in a Concord park. Kimayo released her debut album Phoenix last year and is readying a follow-up LP. Fellow folkie Guy Capacelatro praised her talents, saying her set was “a wallop of sound that was delightfully delicious.”​ Saturday, July 18, 6 p.m., Fletcher-Murphy Park, 28 Fayette St., Concord. Tickets $10 at ccanh.com.

• Let’s rock: Popular local cover group The River Band plays a free show, one of many in a midweek concert series that wraps up the Wednesday before Labor Day with Eric Grant. Upcoming events include 60’s Invasion (July 29), B Street Bombers (Aug. 5), Oxford & Clark (Aug. 12), Studio Two playing Beatles songs (Aug. 19) and Billy Joel tribute act Cold Spring Harbor (Aug. 26). Wednesday, July 22, 7 p.m., Milford Recreation Department, 1 Union Square, Milford, milfordrec.com.

Music that matters

Alternate Routes performs at Tupelo Drive-In

Crisis is often a catalyst for great art. That’s been true twice for Alternate Routes — a few years back the band, fronted by the songwriting duo of Tim Warren and Eric Donnelly, addressed the epidemic of gun violence with “Somewhere in America.” Featuring lyrics by Donnelly, it crystallized the issue by melding the personal and political, without judgment.

Now, as the country endures a pandemic, the pair have delivered a song that fit the moment perfectly. “If I Ever” is a meditation about standing at the brink and vowing to come back with purpose — loving more, worrying less, and facing life’s demons. “I’m gonna be better,” Warren sings in a high lonesome voice. “Because I’m gonna be grateful … if I ever get out of this.”

“If I Ever” wasn’t exactly new. Warren said in a recent phone interview that “bits and pieces of it have been around” for a while. He sent an old demo to producer Chris Ruggiero to buff up, then had Donnelly lay down subtle but essential guitar to build on the rough home recording.

“That’s when it definitely was an Alternate Routes song,” Warren said. “After that, we didn’t do much to it. We just were like, ‘OK, this is cool, here we go’ — then we just put it out.”

It’s the video made to accompany “If I Ever” that lifts the song to a higher plane. Shot at dawn in New York City in its early days as Covid-19’s epicenter, it’s both beautiful and harrowing. The frame fills with socially distanced joggers, a delightful 8-year-old girl named Daisy, encountered during filming, dancing fluidly, and shots of vast empty streets. It ends with frontline workers sharing encouraging words hand-lettered on signs: “If I can feel hope so can you” and “I’ve learned the power of communicating with my eyes.”

Creating the video was a very moving experience for Warren.

“It was such a desolate scene there in Brooklyn,” he said. “Moments on the bridge where there was nobody but us, the police officers sitting there, and a few other people jogging by, I’ll never forget it.”

It came together quickly and was released in early May.

“That’s why I wanted to do it,” Warren said. “We finished the song in the pandemic, and we put it out during the pandemic, and that’s really what it sounds and feels like to me.”

An upcoming duo show at Tupelo Drive-In is their first since before lockdown, and may be their final performance of the year.

“I’m glad we’re going to be able to get to do one,” Warren said. “I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I’m not sure how many of them we’ll be getting to do before we ring out 2020; I just don’t know.”

Other projects will suffice for the well-traveled band. Warren is hungry to make a new album after releasing a series of singles — “It seemed like a good fit for the way people were putting music out over the last couple of years, but for me that pendulum is swinging the other way.”

Both are focused on family. Donnelly and his wife welcomed their first child, a daughter, in March, while Warren and his wife are expecting their third in September.

Such activity makes another project nearing completion even more exciting: their call to community, Nothing More will be published as a children’s book, with drawings by Mae Besom. She’s best known for illustrating Kobi Yamada’s What You Do Matters trilogy.

“This woman is really brilliant, and I can’t wait,” Warren said.

With its anthemic chorus “we are how we treat each other and nothing more,” the song became a phenomenon. It played during the 2014 Olympics closing ceremonies, and the band has performed it at hundreds of schools, while receiving requests to use it at hundreds more.

Warren and Donnelly hope to take it even further.

“We’re going to try to put together a choral music package … together with ‘Somewhere in America’ and a few other songs that can create a dialogue in schools amongst kids learning music, about some of the social stuff that’s spinning around the world right now,” Warren said. “That feels like important work, you know?”

Alternate Routes
When: Thursday, July 23, 6 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Drive-In, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $20 per person (restaurant), $75 per vehicle at tupelohall.com

The Old Guard (R)

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Charlize Theron is an immortal warrior in Netflix’s The Old Guard.

Andy (Theron) leads a small team — Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli) — of sorta-immortal fighters. Andy has been around for millennia, Booker “died” the first time fighting in the Napoleonic wars, and Joe and Nicky fell in love after killing each other during the Crusades. Fighting in battles big and small throughout history, these immortals heal and come back to life every time they’re “killed” — though, we’re told, eventually their time will be up.

Mostly they’ve stayed hidden but a man named Copely (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an ex-CIA agent, has figured out their abilities and sets them up for capture. His intentions aren’t so terrible, maybe, if you don’t think about it too hard: he wants to bring them to petulant hoodie-wearing biotech bazillionaire Merrick (Harry Melling) for study so that their regenerative abilities can be used to heal disease and injury. But Merrick is clearly evil so what are the odds this experiment will just be a peaceful gift to humanity, as Copley intends?

As the group is on the run from Merrick, they get a psychic alert that there is a new immortal: Nile (KiKi Layne), a U.S. Marine recently killed in Afghanistan. Or she appeared “killed” but then healed — freaking out her squad mates. Andy sets off to find her and explain her weird new powers to her before the U.S. government or anybody else can ship her off to a lab.

In addition to the problem of Copley and his motivations (he is presented as a basically good, smart guy, though his initial actions undermine this), The Old Guard has, for me, a structural problem: the “Episode 1” trap. This movie feels so intent on setting up a series of movies that it piles up exposition and slows down the action. The Old Guard does a lot of filling us in — about characters or plot points that are clearly meant to pay off in the future — that doesn’t necessarily add to a fuller understanding of this story and that is a drag on the progress of this movie.

Near the movie’s end, when we get well-choreographed action and characters making decisions, I could see what this movie was and I enjoyed the world this had all built. But all the “TV pilot” business weighed the movie down.

These problems aren’t, however, fatal. I like the characters set up here. Much like in ABC’s Stumptown, another property based, as this is, on a Greg Rucka comic, The Old Guard has a good handle on how to create well-rounded female characters who feel like real people, not just one-dimensional Strong Ladies. The romance between Nicky and Joe adds much needed joy and humanity to the story. (They are a romantic-as-heck couple and it’s a treat to have something so swoony tucked inside an action movie.) Their scenes and scenes of Nile figuring out her new “eternal” status are good examples of the movie folding in heart and lightness without resorting to quippiness. (KiKi Layne, who I liked in If Beale Street Could Talk, holds her own next to Theron here.)

Did I immediately add The Old Guard graphic novel to my library request list? Of course. And the movie’s final moments set up a next chapter that I am eagerly awaiting. I just wish this movie could have been a little tighter and able to stand on its own. B

Rated R for sequences of graphic violence and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood with a screenplay by Greg Rucka (who created the comic book with Leandro Fernandez), The Old Guard is two hours and five minutes long and is available on Netflix.

Book Review 20/07/16

The Great Indoors, by Emily Anthes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 220 pages)

In any other year, a book about “the great indoors” arriving at the start of summer would seem strange, a publishing mistake.

In 2020, however, it’s perfect.

We’ve all been under house arrest, and whether you’ve enjoyed it or are one empty-toilet-paper-roll away from strangling your housemates, the quality of the experience may have much to do with the design of your house. Science writer Emily Anthes explains why, in what she promises is “the surprising science of how buildings shape our behavior, health and happiness.”

The average American, Anthes writes, spends 90 percent of his or her time inside a building, to include offices, stores, restaurants, gyms, theaters and everything else we’ve been missing during the pandemic.

Our love of the outdoors, it seems, is fantasy, or myth. Outdoors is rain and mosquitoes. Indoors, a fridge and sofa. If you’re like Anthes, “anxiety-prone and risk-averse,” you prefer to enjoy the outdoors from your window. But until recently scientists mostly concerned themselves with the environment outside the home rather than in it. But that, Anthes says, is changing, and new research is emerging on how the design of buildings affects our brains, our moods, our productivity and our choices; and how features of buildings, such as windows, affect our mental health.

Some of these findings are intuitive: “Warm, dim lighting makes schoolkids less fidgety and aggressive. Fresh, well-ventilated air boosts office workers’ cognitive function.” Some make sense upon reflection: People who live on the highest floors of a skyscraper are the least likely to survive a cardiac event. But some are simply surprising.

Take, for example, the idea that a more challenging environment might extend life.

One couple in Japan took this to an extreme, building a nine-unit apartment complex that looked “less like a home than an oversized carnival fun house.” The homes were designed to befuddle. They had circular living rooms with kitchens in the center, round studies, ladders that led nowhere and what amounted to speed bumps in the floor. The creators were artists who believed death to be “immoral” and thought it could be cheated and that brain-stimulating architecture was one way to do it. They also created “destabilizing” parks and single-family homes.

Unfortunately, they died, so there were limits to the couple’s genius. Their work could be dismissed as the legacy of passionate fools, but for this: Lab animals housed in stimulating, challenging environments live longer and are healthier than animals confined to boring cages.

And, as Anthes writes, it’s long established that challenges are important for human flourishing. “Start lifting weights, and your muscles will swell. Learn to speak a new language and your brain will sprout new connections.” So who’s to say that a living room with shocking colors and speed bumps on the floor won’t positively affect us like a wheel and maze will stimulate a rat?

But not all changes need to be exhilarating. Anthes writes about a neonatal intensive care unit in Rhode Island that was redesigned from the traditional crowded ward to single rooms equipped with sleeper sofas where the parents could stay instead of just visiting. The infants fared dramatically better in the family rooms.

Having convinced us that the right buildings matter, Anthes embarks on a tour of the great indoors, from her own bathroom, where microbes seethe in the showerhead, to redesigned school lunchrooms in New York City, to a community in Phoenix, Arizona, designed for adults with autism to live their best life. She also takes on the housing of the incarcerated, controversial for those who think prisons shouldn’t be humane. (“We should send fewer people to prison, and we should treat them better while they’re there,” Anthes says.)

And she examines two disparate types of housing: that of the most basic shelter, such as the sustainable huts made out of sandbags fastened together with barbed wire, which an Iranian-American in California invented (locking doors are made out of shipping crates), and the high-tech, Jetson-like homes of the affluent, which could allow more seniors to age in place.

But the Jetson-stuff is passe now. What is really cutting edge in buildings are “buoyant foundations” that literally allow homes in flood-prone areas to float when water rushes in. This is part of a new interest in “amphibious architecture” that will allow humans to stay near the coasts as the oceans creep in. Anthes admits that amphibious homes are “more of a curiosity than a bona fide building trend” and that’s unlikely to change in the U.S., as long as these structures are not eligible for subsidized insurance policies, as is now the case. Still, the possibilities fascinate.

In closing, Anthes takes on buildings in space — what it would take to build a village on the moon or on Mars. “The irony is that our continued existence may hinge on figuring out how to live in environments that are literally lethal,” she writes. You’d think there’d be no research to draw from here, but Anthes sniffed out people who are already designing space cities for a living, such as the CEO of a California company called Mars City Design. (True, it’s in California, and its website says to email the company for its research, so invest carefully.)

“Blueprints for the Red Planet” is the shortest chapter and the least fulfilling, filled as it is with speculation. But the rest of The Great Indoors is a solid and satisfying read, even if its title might induce a nap. B

BOOK NOTES
You cannot predict elections by book sales, but if you could, President Donald Trump’s campaign should be worried.

The No.1 and No. 2 best sellers on Amazon last week were literary grenades thrown at the president: Too Much and Never Enough, a memoir by first niece Mary Trump, and The Room Where It Happened by former national security adviser John Bolton. Both portray the president as immoral and inept.

To find a conservative viewpoint, one that Trump voters would relish, you had to plunge all the way to No. 27, where Ben Shapiro’s How To Destroy America in Three Easy Steps sat three places above Sean Hannity’s Live Free or Die.

To be fair, Hannity’s book was No. 1 in the “elections” category, and it doesn’t release until Aug. 4. But that’s also the release date of Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun, which is Twilight from Edward’s point of view and everyone knows how it ends. It’s still selling like toilet paper (the new hotcakes), at No. 8.

There’s no good recent data that easily explains why there are more liberal/progressive titles than conservative in Amazon’s top 30. Occasionally, a study asserts that Democrats read more than Republicans, but a 2012 survey of GoodReads readers found that supporters of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney read the same median number of books a year: 26.

If none of these appeal (and for the record, Hannity’s book appears to be nothing about New Hampshire), there’s a rollicking good time to be had in Scott Conroy’s Vote First or Die, which is actually about New Hampshire and its outsized role in the election of presidents. Published in 2017, it’s a whimsical look at the path to the 2016 election and a timely reminder of how we got where we are.

Also, new and notable this week isLet Them Eat Tweets, How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, by political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson.

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