What We Are Reading Today: ‘Silence So Deep It Rings’ by Laura Mcphee

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Updated 21 December 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Silence So Deep It Rings’ by Laura Mcphee

Spanning almost all of Nevada and Utah and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming, the sparsely populated regions of the Great Basin and the Basin and Range Province have stories to tell—stories intimate and vast, familial, historical, and geological.

“In Silence So Deep It Rings,” renowned landscape photographer Laura McPhee challenges the tradition of nineteenth-century survey photography, capturing the sheer beauty and depth of the West while conveying what has since occurred on the surface of the land.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Elephants and Their Fossil Relatives’

Updated 12 January 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Elephants and Their Fossil Relatives’

Authors: Asier Larramendi Aand Marco P. Ferretti

Today, only three species of elephants survive—the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana), the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus).

However, these modern giants represent just a fraction of the vast and diverse order Proboscidea, which includes not only living elephants but also their many extinct relatives.

Over the past 60 million years, proboscideans have evolved and adapted across five continents, giving rise to an astonishing variety of forms.