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Gretchen Weber's Book List Robert Sullivan, The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures at the Edge of a City (Scribner, 1998; Anchor Books, 1999) In an act of McPhee-inspired genius, Sullivan, a freelance journalist, transforms the famously foul, fetid marshland lurking outside of New York City into a place of enormous, anomalous beauty, rich with history and mystery. MORE: Willamette Week book review City Limits book review New York Times book review, with link to an essay by Sullivan about The Meadowlands Amazon John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid (1971) An engaging portrait of David Brower, the legendary environmentalist and founder of the Sierra Club, Encounters with the Archdruid, is told through McPhee's detailed accounts of a series of backcountry trips. Each trip pairs Brower with an individual of very different environmental politics: a geologist who thinks that mining is the best use for a beautiful alpine valley, a developer who wants to turn isolated beach into a retreat for the rich, and, most notably, Floyd Dominy, the former Interior Secretary and champion of the Glen Canyon Dam— a creation Brower holds as one of the worst creations of modern times. In typical McPhee fashion, he lets the characters tell their own story, and Brower comes across as likeable, but uncompromising in his willingness to fight for his beliefs. Originally written for The New Yorker. "[This] isn't a cause book. A very sensitive journalist, Mr. McPhee fills us in on many of the facts of Mr. Brower's life and work, filtering out those emotions that block rather than serve rationality. And yet this is far from being a cold and disinterested analysis... The style roles out in rich details that mix into a surprising completeness... Is Brower really an archdruid, putting nature above people? No, says this book, but what he cares about are humanity's less tangible needs." (Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 30, 1971 MORE: Amazon Some Other Reviews Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water (Penguin Books, 1986 Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award) Cadillac Desert is a comprehensive history of water usage and manipulation in the American West. Reisner details the power, politics and personalities behind a hundred years of water rights and the building of massive dams and viaducts throughout the arid West. This book gets behind the facts with a glaring look at the hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds spent on water projects of questionable value in relation to their cost. A model for any journalistic work in terms of its detailed research and comprehensive coverage of such a vital and daunting subject, Cadillac Desert is dense with information and adroitly raises the important questions of "why?" and "for whom?" "Cadillac Desert is of timely and of national importance. Water is important to us all. Lawmakers, taxpayers, hurry up and read this book." _ The Washington Post "Thoughtful and sprightly Reisner's book deserves to be widely read by political leaders, as well as environmentalists and just about anyone interested in water policies After reading Cadillac Desert, it's hard to be indifferent about the importance of water." _Christian Science Monitor "A revealing, absorbing, often amusing and alarming report on where billions of taxpayers' dollars have gone _ and where a lot more are going Reisner has put the story together in trenchant form." _The New York Times Book Review "The scale of this book is as staggering as that of the Hoover Dam. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, it spans our century-long effort to moisten the West." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch MORE: Amazon Cadillac Desert was made into 4-part documentary that won the duPont-Columbia Journalism Award Read an interview with Marc Reisner Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (Oxford University Press 1949) A classic text of nature writing, this book combines masterful prose combined with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for people's relationship with the land. Through a series of descriptive essays, in the style of Thoreau, Leopold builds a powerful case for conservation and respect for the natural world. Leopold is inspiration for later writers important in the environmentalist genre such as Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey. "There is a rudeness and vigor to Leopold's writing that goes directly to the heart of the subject and the heart of the reader One of the seminal works of the environmental movement." _The Boston Globe "Outdoor prose writing at it's best A trenchant book, full of deep beauty and vigor and bite All through it is Leopold's deep love for a healthy land." —The New York Times Book Review "Leopold's principal and extraordinary contribution to our world was to articulate the idea of a land ethic. The human relation to land, he wrote, "is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations." Leopold believed that the basis of successful conservation was to extend to nature the ethical sense of responsibility that humans extend to each other....The power of Leopold's argument-buttressed as it is by his clear, vigorous prose-has not been blunted in the least. In fact, his argument seems more urgently true now than ever." _The New York Times, November 13, 1999 MORE: Amazon Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962) Silent Spring, an exhaustive dissertation on the environmental devastation wrought by the rampant use of pesticides throughout the country, spurred changes in government policy and was fundamental in launching the environmental movement. A landmark book of the 20th century, Silent Spring's enormous impact is still being felt today. A well-known writer when she began her exploration into the damage of DDT and other pesticides, Carson was unable to interest any magazines in her controversial work because they feared the loss of advertising. Eventually, The New Yorker serialized parts of Silent Spring before its publication. "As a direct result of the message in Silent Spring, President Kennedy set up a special panel of his Science Advisory Committee to study the problems of pesticides. The panel's report, when it appeared some months later, was a complete vindication of her thesis. Rereading her book today, one is aware that its implications are far broader than the immediate crisis with which it dealt" _Paul Brooks in the foreword to the 1987 edition "Her book is a cry to the reading public to help curb private and public programs which by use of poisons will end by destroying life on earth. ... Miss Carson, with the fervor of an Ezekiel, is trying to save nature and mankind"— The New York Times Book Review "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is now 35 years old. Written over the years 1958 to 1962, it took a hard look at the effects of insecticides and pesticides on songbird populations throughout the United States, whose declining numbers yielded the silence to which her title attests. "What happens in nature is not allowed to happen in the modern, chemical-drenched world," she writes, "where spraying destroys not only the insects but also their principal enemy, the birds. When later there is a resurgence of the insect population, as almost always happens, the birds are not there to keep their numbers in check." The publication of her impeccably reported text helped change that trend by setting off a wave of environmental legislation and galvanizing the nascent ecological movement. It is justly considered a classic, and it is well worth rereading today." MORE: Amazon Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire (Simon & Schuster, 1968) A passionately felt, deeply poetic book. It has philosophy. It has humor. It has its share of nerve-tingling adventures...set down in a lean, racing prose, in a close-knit style of power and beauty.—The New York Times Book Review Edward Abbey's account of two summers spent in southeastern Utah's canyonlands is surely one of the most enduring works of contemporary American nature writing. In it he tells of his stint as a park ranger at Arches National Monument, of his love for the natural beauty that surrounded him, and of his distaste for the modernizing improvements designed to increase visitation to the park. "I confess to being a nature lover," admits Abbey more than thirty years after his sojourn in the wilderness. "But I did not mean to be mistaken for a nature writer. I never wanted to be anything but a writer, period." First published in 1968 to "a few brief but not hostile notices," Desert Solitaire quietly sold out of its first printing but eventually developed a loyal enough following in paperback to earn Abbey the "nature writer" label he claims never to have wanted. Desert Solitaire lives on because it is a work that reflects profound love of nature and a bitter abhorrence of all that would desecrate it. "Abbey is one of our very best writers about wilderness country," observed Wallace Stegner in the Los Angeles Times Book Review; "he is also a gadfly with a stinger like a scorpion." "This book may well seem like a ride on a bucking bronco," added Edwin Way Teale in the New York Times. "It is rough, tough, combative...passionately felt, deeply poetic." But perhaps the spirit of the man, the work, and the circumstances of its writing were best summarized by Larry McMurtry in his review for the Washington Post: "Edward Abbey is the Thoreau of the American West." _University of Arizona Press "With language as colorful as a Canyonlands sunset and a perspective as pointed as a prickly pear, Cactus Ed captures the heat, mystery, and surprising bounty of desert life. Desert Solitaire is a meditation on the stark landscapes of the red-rock West, a passionate vote for wilderness, and a howling lament for the commercialization of the American outback."—Amazon.com MORE: Information on Abbey, his works, life, and philosophies Amazon Webster University Assistant Professor Karla Armbruster's case for Desert Solitaire: "Abbey's uncompromising stance on the value of nature and wilderness, combined with a dark and democratic sense of humor, make this book one that powerfully affects almost everyone who reads it" John McPhee, Coming into the County It is a reviewer's greatest pleasure to ring the gong for a species of masterpiece —Edward Hoagland, The New York Times Book Review "Justly celebratedBy showing us what Alaska is like, McPhee reminds us of what we have become."—The Washington Post Book World "What is really in view in Coming into the Country is a matter not usually met in works of reportage . . . nothing less than the nature Of the human condition." —Benjamin De Mott, The Atlantic Monthly "McPhee has acted as an antenna in a far-off place that few will see. He has brought back a wholly satisfying voyage of spirit and mind." —Paul Grey, Time "With this book McPhee proves to be the most versatile journalist in America." —Editor's Choice, The New York Times "Residents of the Lower 48 sometimes imagine Alaska as a snow-covered land of igloos, oil pipelines, and polar bears. But Alaska is far more complex geographically, culturally, ecologically, and politically than most Americans know, and few writers are as capable of capturing this complexity as John McPhee. In Coming into the Country, McPhee describes his travels through much of the state with bush pilots, prospectors, and settlers, as well as politicians and businesspeople who have their eyes set on a very different future for the state." MORE: More John McPhee information Amazon.com |
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