Alternatively, read part I of Shadow Country, a revised and condensed version of the trilogy, reviewed in OrionMatthiessen interview with Charlie Rose
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - Killing Mister Watson by Peter Matthiessen
Alternatively, read part I of Shadow Country, a revised and condensed version of the trilogy, reviewed in OrionMatthiessen interview with Charlie Rose
Monday June 23 - A Naturalist and Other Beasts by George Schaller
National Book Award winner Schaller (vice president & science director, Wildlife Conservation Soc.; The Serengeti Lion) has been a field biologist since the 1950s, and his research has taken him to some of the most remote and exotic places imaginable—e.g., the Serengeti, a savanna stretching across Tanzania and Kenya; Pakistan; Mongolia; and India. This collection of 19 of his essays focuses on animals. Some of his subjects will be well known to the reader—e.g., the tiger, jaguar, mountain gorilla—while others, such as the saola, capybara, and chiru, will be a new experience. Each relatively short essay includes an introduction by the author and describes his fieldwork and the place each animal inhabits in the greater biological web. The highlight is his recounting of personal experiences and his inclusion of numerous photos of himself, his family, and the animals in his research. Schaller makes powerful arguments for the need to continue conservation efforts. His writing will appeal to both general audiences and life scientists. Recommended for academic libraries, particularly those with natural history collections, and for all public libraries.—Marianne Stowell Bracke, Purdue Univ. Libs., West Lafayette, IN
Mar 24, 2008, Eating Stone by Ellen Meloy
Meloy offers uncommon insights into our relationship with the wild in a vivid study of desert bighorn sheep. These animals live on the most arid and rugged of terrains. Hidden, mythologized, and coveted, once abundant, then nearly extinct, bighorns have staged a stupendous comeback in spite of dwindling habitats. After closely observing these ruminative and light-footed creatures in Utah, Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert, and the Sierra Nevada, and reading up on their biology and lore, Meloy animatedly describes supermodel-perfect rams, alert ewes, and lambs given to springing "straight up in the air like a piece of toast." Between witty, self-disclosing, and metaphor-spiked field notes, Meloy offers provocative reflections on restoration ecology and the "politics of wildlife" and muses over how the loss of animals and wilderness diminishes our imagination and sense of wonder. excerpted from Donna Seaman, Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved ; Click here for another (lengthy) Review
November 26, 2007 - Wild America by James Fisher and Roger Tory Peterson
Amazon.com Editorial ReviewIn 1953 renowned American ornithologist and painter Roger Tory Peterson and British seabird specialist James Fisher undertook a whirlwind, 100-day tour of America's great wildlife refuges and corridors. This wonderful book recounts that sometimes madcap voyage, which took them to familiar places such as Long Island and the Smoky Mountains, but also to less traveled venues such as Big Bend and the then-remote Everglades. Along the way the authors document such things as the courting behavior of dragonflies and the arrival of the first cattle egrets in North America. This is a classic of nature writing and a great pleasure to read.
April 16th, 2007 - Comming into the Country by John McPhee
. . . . an unforgettable account of Alaska and Alaskans . . . a rich tapestry of vivid characters, observed landscapes, and descriptive narrative, in three principal segments that deal, respectively, with a total wilderness, with urban Alaska, and with life in the remoteness of the bush.Go HERE and scroll down for Amazon Reviews
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The Winter Beach by Charlton Ogburn, Jr.
This timeless nature classic follows the winter sun south to reveal a breathtaking world of crashing breakers, rogue dunes and jeweled sands, and the birds, shrubs, trees, and marine life that inhabit the magnificent Atlantic coast. From Mount Desert Island south along the shore to Cape Cod and Nantucket, to the Long Island beaches and the Chincoteague and Assateague islands off Virginia , and ending on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, this book is said to be “of rare distinction and singular beauty.”
Monday, November 6, 2006 at 7:30 p.m - Darlington's Fall, A Novel in Verse by Brad Leithauser
On the cusp of the 20th century, an encounter with a rare butterfly in rural Indiana sets Russel Darlington’s life in motion and propels the narrative of Brad Leithauser’s unlikely epic poem Darlington’s Fall, a 300-page novel in verse (Knopf, $25). As a promising young professor hungry to explore the new age of Darwin, Darlington takes off for an obscure Pacific island in search of more alluring lepidoptera. It is on Ponape (now known as Pohnpei—a model Nature Conservancy project site in Micronesia) that the romantic naturalist has a fateful encounter with a “fluttering lady … of pure iridescence.” Essentially a love story, Darlington’s Fall is also a fascinating meditation on chance, natural selection, the nature of science and art, and the evolution of species—and the human individual. ( by Ron Geatz in Nature Conservancy Magazine)
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