Nature and the natural world: general interest Books

Book SynopsisTravelogue, cultural meditation, and love story, On the Ice casts a panoramic view on one of the oddest communities in one of the most extreme places on earth. Negative 70-degree weather. Canned food that dates back at least a decade. Wind storms powerful enough to lift a human off the ground. Extremely unfashionable clothing. Welcome to Antarctica, the farthest-away place in the world. Hoping to get away from the complexities of her life, Gretchen Legler arrives at McMurdo Station with the intention of researching the landscape; what she finds, instead, is a zany population of misfits and dreamers. Populated by people from all walks of life—bankers, MBAs, therapists, carpenters, scientists, laborers, and military brass—the individuals that Legler meets have gone to Antarctica to escape everything from parking tickets to angry spouses. Part sociological study, part historiography, and part love story, On the Ice is an exploration of one of the most unexplored places on earth and the people who are drawn to it.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe spellbinding true story of a young woman's adventure in the Australian outback as she joins a small crew on an abandoned cattle station and drags feral cattle in from the wild. One thousand square miles of coastal scrub--inundated by monsoon floods in summer, baked dry in winter, and filled with the most deadly animals in the world--Stilwater seems an unlikely home for a cattle operation. But in the countless miles beyond the station compound roam tens of thousands of cows, many entirely feral from a long period of neglect. Rafael has been hired, along with a ragged crew of ringers and stockmen, to bring them in for drafting. Over a season they use helicopters, motorcycles, bullcatcher jeeps, horses, ropes, and knives to win Stilwater Station back from the wild. A deeply poetic inquiry into our desire to make order where we find wildness, Stilwater: Finding Mercy in the Outback suffuses us with salt and scrub and blood, blurring the line between domestic and feral in wondrous, unsettling ways. This is a whirlwind of men, women, cattle, horses, machines and landscape in collaborative evolution, all becoming different manifestations of the same entity--the Australian Wild.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA lifelong resident of southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa, Paul Gruchow celebrated the few scattered patches of prairie land that remain in a region once dominated by grasslands. Gruchow recorded his thoughts, observations, and experiences in each season on the prairie, eventually compiling them into this moving chronicle of a sometimes harsh but always stunning landscape. Be it the bitter winds of winter, the return of the geese in spring, or the first pasque flower, the cycles of growth on the prairie have the power to move and inspire lovers of nature.Trade Review"Gruchow writes of the glare of moonlight on snow; of the impulse to name and possess things in the natural world; of prairie phlox, garter snakes, and the dust in the air that turns the sunlight crimson ... an alertness permeates this enduring book." --Los Angeles Times

Read more less

Book SynopsisOver the course of six critically acclaimed books--including a compelling meditation on Moby-Dick--Dan Beachy-Quick has established himself as "one of America's most significant young poets" (Lyn Hejinian). In Wonderful Investigations, Beachy-Quick broaches "a hazy line, a faulty boundary" between our daily world and one rich with wonder; a magical world in which, through his work as a writer, Beachy-Quick participates with a singular combination of critical intelligence and lyricism. Touching on the works of Emerson, Thoreau, Proust, and Plato, among others, Beachy-Quick outlines the problem of duality in modern thought--the separation of the mind and body, word and referent, intelligence and mystery, human and natural--and makes the case for a fuller kind of nature poetry, one that strives to overcome this false separation, and to celebrate the notion that "wonder is the fact that the world has never ceased to be real."Trade ReviewPraise for Wonderful Investigations: "Dan Beachy-Quick's Wonderful Investigations juxtaposes four essays with three 'meditations' and four fable-like 'tales' to trace the tension between mind and body, between our inner and our outer lives. A poet, he is terrific with an image and relies on antecedents here from Plato to Thoreau to give his work a context and a depth." --David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times "This is a book about reading. It offers the kinds of insights into the act that most of us never stop to indulge in, and for that we are eternally grateful...The idea that reading offers a dream world, a parallel one, is familiar. But Beachy-Quick takes this a step farther. Reading before sleep, reading books to children before they go to sleep, is a way to slide gently through a middle place and into forgetting...try reading Beachy-Quick, who most certainly delivers perceptual fine-tuning." --Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Review of Books "Wonderful Investigations is a model of intense observation, of a mind reaching out as far as it can. Always Beachy-Quick seems to write in metaphor, returning to the process of wonder, and why it's so necessary, and then to the failure of language and poetry to ever truly take us where we want to go. And while I would normally tire of this recursive sort of exploration, I cannot turn away, returning to these essays because I long to feel as intensely curious about anything as Beachy-Quick does. This is the triumph of Wonderful Investigations: his reader cannot help but feel the same desire for that hazy line--cannot help but want to reach for it as well." --Ploughshares "'There is then creative writing as well as creative reading,' wrote Emerson in 'The American Scholar.' Poet and essayist Dan Beachy-Quick admits that this dictum is 'the touchstone of his creative life,' and it shows in his new prose collection Wonderful Investigations. An almost impossible task inspires this work: to stalk and capture states of wonder, while knowing that the quarry itself will evaporate if grasped too firmly with the tools of analysis. Literature provides the means to chart the hazy, yet distinct, border between the world of reality and the world of wonder, between hunger and mystery ... Beachy-Quick's sensitive and intimate approach to writing about writing seems an ideal antidote to the post-whateverist malaise of most literary criticism. He acknowledges theory but doesn't get weighed down by it, nor is it his primary interest ... In a landscape that at times seems overpopulated with creative writers, we need more creative readers like Beachy-Quick." -- Justin Wadland, Rain Taxi Excerpt from a profile and Q&A with Dan Beachy-Quick in The Kenyon Review: Andrew David King for Kenyon Review: You also talk with some frequency of "magic," "mystery," and "wonder" in your work. This shows up in your preface to Wonderful Investigations, too; there, you write that its essays seek "to near those ways in which wonder, magic, ritual, and initiation continue to exert a numinous presence within the work of reading." You also use a parable to conceptualize the divide between a world a knowledge and another world "where thoughts refuse to lead to knowledge." But are there any pitfalls to wonder? How does one negotiate a sense of "true wonder," if you will, and escape confusing the difficult for the irreducible? Dan Beachy-Quick: Wonder has numerous pitfalls, even dangers. Wonder can so stymie the mind that it disengages from the very world that triggered it. Wonder astonishes; we can find ourselves as if made into stone by it, a kind of witness outside of an ethic. I keep thinking here of Cortez's men who came into Tenochtitlan and saw before their eyes a city as if pulled from the pages of a book, something more than real and so less than real, which allowed them, in part, to commit the atrocity they did. Whenever wonder works so as to disassociate the mind from the world, I think we find ourselves mired in a crisis we seldom see as a crisis, and imagination loses its ethical possibilities in favor of the mere pleasure--not a loving pleasure--of enjoying a world that doesn't actually exist. What concerns me most is wonder as it might reorient us back to the actual, wonder as a threshold to the real--assuming, I guess, that we are in constant need of return to the thing we are already in. KR: You begin "The Hut of Poetry," which was originally published in KR under a different title, with the following sentence: "The difficulty of being a nature poet is that nature always intervenes." Do you consider yourself a nature poet? I ask this because you go on, immediately afterward, to talk about the delayed-ness and paradoxes of perception, a constant theme in your work. "But a home is never the world--a home is a separation from the world. A poem is never the world--a poem is a separation from the world." The blurb on inside flap of Wonderful Investigations describes it as an exploration of "the problem of duality," but it seems, also, that there are divisions inherent in not just perceiving the world but in turning away from it to write it down. "I look up from 'sparrow' to see sparrow," you write in This Nest, after writing earlier that a poem "forms a lens on a page." From your story "A Point that Flows" (harking back to Plato's definition of the line) there's another semblance of this: "Looking down I saw up." Should poetry aspire to mimesis--"The virtue of an honest ethic, to write only what one sees..."--and is this attainable, or desirable? What are poets to make of this perceptual separation, if it does in fact exist, from the world they wish to access? DBQ: I guess I do consider myself a nature poet. I should qualify that by saying I don't know what else a poet can be. It feels to me there is a world, and we write into it to write about it. But doing so is complicated by the medium of our entry, the offering of the poem that is in itself a world, tied not only to mimesis as a primary crisis, but to the fact of the image as it doubles world to represent it. I'd want to argue for mimesis as a use of language that must attend to itself as it also attends to what it names. I might even suggest that nature knows this about the medium of language, the slippage consciousness creates between word and world as interpenetrating, not wholly embodying, realities. I think this is, in part, what Heraclitus means when he says, "Nature loves to hide." Duality isn't wholly of interest to me. But there is an inevitable arrival in basic dichotomies that poetry recognizes even as it tries to undermine them, keeping together what should fall apart, reconciling opposites. Such work is another reason why Romanticism is so deeply important to me--much of their deepest work occurs here. Praise for A Whaler's Dictionary: "This is a rich, profound, fascinating book, the kind that widens the margins of everything we read, making room for new observations, more creative relationships all around: writer/reader, person/book, literature/life." --Los Angeles Times "A supple and well-read poet with a fine ear, Beachy-Quick has long studied--some might even say he has been obsessed with--Moby-Dick...Often the whale, and the book, represent the endlessness of all quests, our enduring hunger for the right, last word. Jewish philosophy and wisdom literature (Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas), other famous modern thinkers (Wittgenstein, Derrida) and Shakespeare's King Lear also guide Beachy-Quick's thoughts, while the rhythms of not only Melville but Emerson and Thoreau guide his resonant prose." --Publishers Weekly "After immersing himself in Moby Dick for many years, poet and teacher Beachy-Quick found himself embarked on a "mad task." Following Ishmael's lead, he has created a whaler's dictionary...Beachy-Quick's lyric and philosophical dictionary is also a browser's delight, with see also lists that launch the reader on intriguing voyages into the realms of myth and archetype, the sea's blue wilderness, and the uncharted waters of the collective unconscious." --Donna Seaman, Booklist "Essayistic, inventive, and frequently brilliant." --Poetry Foundation "Wounded by a book, wounded by the force of idolatrous speech in Moby-Dick, Dan Beachy-Quick has mounted a kind of folly, a nautilus, enclosing the furtive wall of his own lyric sensibility. A Whaler's Dictionary reminds us why poets must sometimes measure their gifts against the calculus of prose, and why criticism by poets, unlike academic arguments, sometimes produces a flame which stands the test of time." --Daniel Tiffany, author of Toy Medium and Puppet Wardrobe "This is a major work on the charged relationship that can come into being between text and reader, written by one of America's most significant young poets." --Lyn Hejinian, author of Saga/Circus and The Fatalist "A Whaler's Dictionary manages to function as an oddly ideal work of criticism, breathing new life into Moby-Dick and showing how the novel subsists as an intricately living thing." --Virginia Quarterly Review

Read more less

Book SynopsisWinner of the 2013 ASLE Book Award Winner of the Reed Award for the Best Book on the Southern Environment 2011 Named a Top Book from the South 2011 by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution A San Francisco Chronicle Gift Book Recommendation for 2011 A Southern Independent Booksellers Bestseller "For those interested in putting the Gulf crisis in perspective, there can be no better guide than this funny, often uncertain, frank, opinionated, always curious, informed and awestruck, accounting of how we've gone wrong and could go right, a full-strength antidote to the Kryptonite of corporate greed and human ignorance." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution Traveling the shores of the Gulf from east to west with oceanographers, subsistence fisherman, seafood distributors, and other long-time Gulf residents, acclaimed author and environmental advocate David Gessner offers a lively, arresting account of the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. With The Tarball Chronicles Gessner tells a story that extends beyond the archetypal oil-soaked pelican, beyond politics, beyond BP, and beyond other oil spill books in the market. Instead, heart on his sleeve and beer in hand, he explores the ecosystem of the Gulf as a complicated whole and focuses on the people whose lives and livelihoods have been jeopardized by the spill. With hisTrade ReviewWinner of The Southern Environmental Law Center's Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment Praise for The Tarball Chronicles "Anyone who wanted a first-hand look at the Gulf after the news cycle ended will find it here ... brilliant, thoughtful." -- Publishers Weekly (STARRED review) "If you read only one book about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill this year, it should be this one. If you plan not to read any books about it, make an exception for this blunt, funny, eye-opening quest to find the real stories behind the Gulf crisis." -- Shelf Awareness "Expressive and adventurous. A profoundly personal inquiry into the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe unique in its hands-on immediacy and far-ranging ruminations." --Donna Seaman, Booklist "Brilliant--the best and most original writing coming out of the Gulf." --Scott Dodd, OnEarth Magazine, Natural Resources Defense Council " The Tarball Chronicles [is] an eye-opening, jaw-dropping account ... Gessner crafts a powerfully informative but also immensely relatable narrative. Entertaining and rousing." -- Mother Nature Network "Gessner's account of his journey blazes out with a fiery, pugilistic style...His journey around the Gulf of Mexico offers us a powerful and sobering reminder that whether or not we feel the direct effects of the oil spill in our backyards, we are all implicated, all compromised, and--the most important for Gessner--all connected" --James Lang, America: The National Catholic Weekly "David Gessner is on a roll." -- New Orleans Times-Picayune "For those interested in putting the Gulf crisis in perspective, there can be no better guide than this funny, often uncertain, frank, opinionated, always curious, informed and awestruck, accounting of how we've gone wrong and could go right, a full-strength antidote to the Kryptonite of corporate greed and human ignorance." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution " The Tarball Chronicles is well worth your time. It's a darkly entertaining tribute to the Gulf coast, our 'national sacrifice zone.' But be warned: You'll come away discomfited and with more than a few questions of your own." -- Tampa Bay Online "Gessner has the heart and mind of an investigative journalist... Not everyone will be pleased with this Jeremiah in our midst, but the word is a fire and a hammer, and Gessner delivers it well." -- Mobile Press-Register "Highly readable, strongly recommended." --Fred Kasten, WWNO's "The Sound of Books" "An expert naturalist, he not only observes but talks with people who are in the know--forceful, insightful, blood-and-guts people who will speak their minds (like David). There is grit and heartbreak and energy in just about everything he writes." --Clyde Edgerton, the author of Lunch at the Piccadilly and Walking Across Egypt "Vivid, funny, opinionated, poignant, and mold breaking--Gessner takes us deep into the environmental and personal tragedies of the spill." --Jim Campbell, the author of The Final Frontiersman "Plenty of people are writing about the BP oil disaster, but few indeed will be able to make us feel the reality of it like David Gessner can. The likelihood that his account will also be action-filled and darkly funny is pure bonus." --John Jeremiah Sullivan, the author of Blood Horses "In this highly readable, firsthand account of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, David Gessner considers the catastrophe in the Gulf as a symptom of even bigger economic and cultural challenges that loom in our future. This excellent book is not judgmental, but thought provoking and well worth reading." --David Allen Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds Praise for Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond "David Gessner's writing is not only a testament of hope but a beautiful bow to the osprey he lives among."--Terry Tempest Williams "Gessner writes beautifully, with grace and humor."-- Publishers Weekly "An engaging, lyrical guide to osprey migration, Cuba, and a common humanity."-- Orion Magazine "Gessner's travels are filled with small delights. He has a great gift for conveying reverence without sanctimony, and even at his most sardonic and self-deprecating, his sense of wonder at the osprey never falters. As he stands on a rock above Cuba's Sierra Maestra, watching ospreys rocket past, we wish we could be up there beside him, binoculars in one hand, a cold beer in the other."--George Black, OnEarth "A grand and cheering journey on the wings of one of nature's most sociable predators."--Carl Hiassen, author of Nature Girl Praise for The Prophet of Dry Hill: Lessons From a Life in Nature "Sharing a philosophy of life and living, Gessner eloquently reacquaints readers old and new to [legendary naturalist John] Hay's magnificent contributions to the art of nature writing."-- Booklist "This book is an enormous gift, an act of preservation as important as any chunk of land purchased by The Nature Conservancy. John Hay's stature cannot be overestimated, and David Gessner has done him great justice." --Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth "If Thoreau had wanted a disciple, he couldn't have had a better one than David Gessner...This beautiful book should inspire the reader to 'get down in nature, down in the water and the dirt,' as Hay urges. I am sending my copy of this book to the wildlife-destroyer in the White House."--Alice Furlaud, NPR reporter Praise for Sick of Nature "Comical, energetic, and reverentially irreverent...Gessner's literary voice in this book is something new, something different...In particular, he argues for--and then gleefully demonstrates--the enlivening contribution of farce and other modes of narrative in the field of nature writing...More like a gulp of laughing gas than the standard breath of fresh air."-- Orion Magazine "Reminiscent of Edward Abbey, and, like that writer, [Gessner] leaves you with plenty to ponder. Highly recommended."-- Library Journal "Here is an environmental read with irreverent laughter and attentive awe both."-- Virginia Quarterly Review "Our best writer of creative nonfiction period."--Mark Spitzer, author of Bottom Feeder Praise for Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder "David Gessner's writing is not only a testament of hope but a beautiful bow to the osprey he lives among."--Terry Tempest Williams "Through textured anecdotes and graphic details, Gessner provides insights into the life and history of this great sea bird of prey that will delight both the committed birder and the general reader."-- Publishers Weekly "This beautifully written story of a season with birds of prey makes for engrossing reading as we learn about osprey life from a master essayist."-- Booklist "Thrilling...Memorable...Among the classics of American nature writing."-- Boston Globe "Engrossing...An author who's both sensuous and lyrical while also being pristinely concise."-- Rocky Mountain News

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe sermons of Joni Tevis' youth filled her with dread, a sense "that an even worse story--one you hadn't read yet--could likewise come true." In this revelatory collection, she reckons with her childhood fears by exploring the uniquely American fascination with apocalypse. From a haunted widow's wildly expanding mansion, to atomic test sites in the Nevada desert, her settings are often places of destruction and loss. And yet Tevis transforms these eerie destinations into sites of creation as well, uncovering powerful points of connection. Whether she's relating her experience of motherhood or describing the timbre of Freddy Mercury's voice in "Somebody to Love," she relies on the same reverence for detail, the same sense of awe. And by anchoring her attention to the raw materials of our world--nails and beams, dirt and stone, bones and blood--she discovers grandeur in the seemingly mundane. Possessed throughout with eclectic intelligence and extraordinary lyricism, these essays illuminate curiosities and momentous events with the same singular light.Trade ReviewPraise for The World is On Fire Winner of the 2016 Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction Finalist for the 2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize "TheThe World is On Fire masterfully questions, rummages, and connects the obscure with the universal, uncovering truths about faith and resurrection we had been waiting for, whether we knew it or not."--Brevity Magazine "Sharp observations of the leftover and ongoing apocalypses of American culture ... an idiosyncratic and impressive book."--Ander Monson, the author of Letter to a Future Lover "This is a whale of a book, bringing us the wonderfullest things from the ends of the earth."--Amy Leach, the author of Things That Are "The literary equivalent of long exhalations after holding one's breath, a passionate outpouring of description and revelation."--Publishers Weekly "Tevis rivals Barbara Kingsolver, Rebecca Solnit, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and Terry Tempest Williams."--Foreword Reviews "Evocative essays on faith, life and wonder. In these lyrical, finely crafted pieces, like poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and Mary Oliver, Tevis sees the natural world imbued with spiritual power."--Kirkus "Tevis's keen eye takes readers from the steel of scissor blades and the cold waters of Alaska to the fire of atomic bomb testing grounds as seen through a View-Master."--Library Journal "Fear and wonder, sorrow and resignation. This sounds relentless, too heavy to bear. But Tevis is such a beautiful stylist that I'm willing to follow her anywhere, to feel anything she wants me to. This book is gorgeous, its sentences rhythmic and rambling and reflective."--Bookslut "Carefully observed and highly crafted essays -- some of the most surprising and original I've read."--Los Angeles Review of Books Praise for the Author: "Tevis's writing, a showcase for her interests in religion, memoir, natural study and women's history, is precise and unique." -- Publishers Weekly "Tevis illuminates the dim corners of memory as she draws attention to the fragile connection between human beings and the mysteries that surround us." -- Diane Wilson "An innovative young writer deeply immersed in literary tradition." -- Mark Doty

Read more less

Book SynopsisNamed a "Best Book of the Year" by New Statesman, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Washington Independent Review of BooksSouthern Book Prize FinalistFrom New York Times contributing opinion writer Margaret Renkl comes an unusual, captivating portrait of a family—and of the cycles of joy and grief that inscribe human lives within the natural world.Growing up in Alabama, Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father—and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver.And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds—the natural one and our own—“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin.”Gorgeously illustrated by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, Late Migrations is an assured and memorable debut.Trade ReviewPraise for Margaret Renkl’s Late Migrations “Beautifully written, masterfully structured, and brimming with insight into the natural world, Late Migrations can claim its place alongside Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and A Death in the Family. It has the makings of an American classic.”—Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth "[Margaret Renkl] is the most beautiful writer! I love this book. It's about the South, and growing up there, and about her love of nature and animals and her wonderful family." —Reese Witherspoon "A perfect book to read in the summer . . . This is the kind of writing that makes me want to just stay put, reread and savor everything about that moment." —Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "Equal parts Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott with a healthy sprinkle of Tennessee dry rub thrown in." —New York Times Book Review"A beautiful accretion of poetic prose musings"—Oprah Daily “A compact glory, crosscutting between consummate family memoir and keenly observed backyard natural history. Renkl’s deft juxtapositions close up the gap between humans and nonhumans and revive our lost kinship with other living things.”—Richard Powers, author of The Overstory "Magnificent . . . Conjure your favorite place in the natural world: beach, mountain, lake, forest, porch, windowsill rooftop? Precisely there is the best place in which to savor this book." —NPR.org "Late Migrations has echoes of Annie Dillard's The Writing Life—with grandparents, sons, dogs and birds sharing the spotlight, it's a witty, warm and unaccountably soothing all-American story." —People "[Renkl] guides us through a South lush with bluebirds, pecan orchards, and glasses of whiskey shared at dusk in this collection of prose in poetry-size bits; as it celebrates bounty, it also mourns the profound losses we face every day." —O, the Oprah Magazine "Graceful . . . like a belated answer to [E.B.] White." —Wall Street Journal "A lovely collection of essays about life, nature, and family. It will make you laugh, cry—and breathe more deeply." —Parade Magazine “This warm, rich memoir might be the sleeper of the summer. [Renkl] grew up in the South, nursed her aging parents, and never once lost her love for life, light, and the natural world. Beautiful is the word, beautiful all the way through.”—Philadelphia Inquirer "Like the spirituality of Krista Tippett's On Being meets the brevity of Joe Brainard . . . The miniature essays in Late Migrations approach with modesty, deliver bittersweet epiphanies, and feel like small doses of religion."—Literary Hub "In her poignant debut, a memoir, Renkl weaves together observations from her current home in Nashville and short vignettes of nature and growing up in the South.—Garden & Gun “Renkl feels the lives and struggles of each creature that enters her yard as keenly as she feels the paths followed by her mother, grandmother, her people. Learning to accept the sometimes harsh, always lush natural world may crack open a window to acceptance of our own losses. In Late Migrations, we welcome new life, mourn its passing, and honor it along the way.”—Indie Next List (July 2019), selected by Kat Baird, The Book Bin "[A] stunning collection of essays merging the natural landscapes of Alabama and Tennessee with generations of family history, grief and renewal. Renkl's voice sounds very close to the reader's ear: intimate, confiding, candid and alert." —Shelf Awareness "A book that will be treasured."—Minneapolis Star Tribune "One of the best books I've read in a long time . . . [and] one of the most beautiful essay collections that I have ever read. It will give you chills."—Silas House, author of Southernmost “A close and vigilant witness to loss and gain, Renkl wrenches meaning from the intimate moments that define us. Her work is a chronicle of being. And a challenge to cynicism. Late Migrations is flat-out brilliant and it has arrived right on time.”—John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers “Gracefully written and closely observed, Renkl’s lovely essays are tinged with the longing for family and places now gone while rejoicing in the flutter of birds and life still alive.”—Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams “Here is an extraordinary mind combined with a poet’s soul to register our own old world in a way we have not quite seen before. Late Migrations is the psychological and spiritual portrait of an entire family and place presented in quick takes—snapshots—a soul’s true memoir. The dire dreams and fears of childhood, the mother’s mysterious tears, the imperfect beloved family . . . all are part of a charged and vibrant natural world also filled with rivalry, conflict, the occasional resolution, loss, and delight. Late Migrations is a continual revelation.”—Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls “Renkl holds my attention with essays about plants and caterpillars in a way no other nature writer can.”—Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink “This is the story of grief accelerated by beauty and beauty made richer by grief. . . . Like Patti Smith in Woolgathering, Renkl aligns natural history with personal history so completely that the one becomes the other. Like Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Renkl makes, of a ring of suburbia, an alchemical exotica.”—The Rumpus “[A] magnificent debut . . . Renkl instructs that even amid life’s most devastating moments, there are reasons for hope and celebration. Readers will savor each page and the many gems of wisdom they contain.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Compelling, rich, satisfying . . . The short, potent essays of Late Migrations are objects as worthy of marvel and study as the birds and other creatures they observe.”—Foreword Reviews (starred review) “A melding of flora, fauna and family . . . Renkl captures the spirit and contemporary culture of the American South better than anyone.”—Book Page, A 2019 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book “[Late Migrations] is shot through with deep wonder and a profound sense of loss. It is a fine feat, this book. Renkl intimately knows that ‘this life thrives on death’ and chooses to sing the glory of being alive all the same.”—Booklist “A series of redolent snapshots and memories that seem to halt time. . . . [Renkl’s] narrative metaphor becomes the miraculous order of nature . . . in all its glory and cruelty; she vividly captures ‘the splendor of decay.’”—Kirkus “A captivating, beautifully written story of growing up, love, loss, living, and a close extended family by a talented nature writer and memoirist that will appeal to those who enjoy introspective memoirs and the natural world close to home.”—Library Journal

Read more less

Book SynopsisA Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2023A Library Journal Recommended Read for 2023A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2023A vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory.What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere.Erin Sharkey considers Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac, as she follows the passing of seasons in an urban garden in Buffalo. Naima Penniman reflects on a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal, within her own pursuit of environmental justice. Ama Codjoe meditates on rain, hair, protest, and freedom via a photo of a young woman during a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. And so on—with wide-ranging contributions from Carolyn Finney, Ronald Greer II, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sean Hill, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Glynn Pogue, Katie Robinson, and Lauret Savoy—unearthing evidence of the ways Black people’s relationship to the natural world has persevered through colonialism, slavery, state-sponsored violence, and structurally racist policies like Jim Crow and redlining.A scrapbook, a family chest, a quilt—and an astounding work of historical engagement and literary accomplishment—A Darker Wilderness is a collection brimming with abundance and insight.Trade Review“In tales of the American wilderness, Black people have typically existed on the margins . . . This volume helps fill those gaps.”—Rosalind Bentley, Minneapolis Star Tribune"A response to the absence of Black literature about attachment to the American landscape, [A Darker Wilderness is] a multigenerational dwelling place that is both internal and external. An abundance of relevant themes emerge: home as refuge, seeking freedom amid social oppression, gardens as healers, and the complex history of Black landownership . . . A well-curated assemblage of Black voices that draws profound connections among family, nature, aspiration, and loss."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review“A Darker Wilderness is a remarkable collection of essays regarding generational experiences of the natural world….Some essays are tender and quiet; others are forceful calls to action; still others uncover natural magic in unsuspecting places. Each is creative and revelatory.”—Foreword Reviews, starred review“Imaginative, vexing, joyful, and heartbreaking reflections about the explorations of Black Americans in nature.”—Orion“The essays found within the pages are as Black and boundless as the night sky. They traverse oceans, roads, mountains, stretches of forested and farmed land, alleys, and even break through prison walls. On these pages, the anthology’s writers invite readers to accompany them on journeys in the past, present, future, and beyond.”—Shea Wesley Martin, Autostraddle“In A Darker Wilderness, Erin Sharkey has created and assembled the most important anthology of this decade. Here, we sit and sift through the unexpected explorations of Black folk and the wonders of our experiences with woods. This book feels like a beautifully layered black forest that must be experienced.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy“This beautiful collection of essays offers thoroughgoing contemplations of the vexing, heartbreaking, miraculous, and wonderful questions of Black people and the land, Black people and the earth, which, as far as I’m concerned, are among the most important questions there are. I’m so glad, so grateful, to have A Darker Wilderness as guide and friend; I’m so glad we get to ask those questions together.”—Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights“Reading A Darker Wilderness feels like walking down a dim urban street that turns out to have always been a sacred wood full of magic. The poets and creative nonfiction writers gathered here offer imaginative, ranging, and incisor-sharp reflections on Black experience in and with the natural world. Their words are incandescent and irreverent, alarming and lovely, poignant and honest. Their call to remember the land, name it, share it, and tend it, will ring out long after the last page has been turned.”—Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake“What does it feel like to be left out? Black folk know. Largely absent from the narrative of what nature means to the environmental movement, the story of America’s nature-noticing legacy is incomplete without our voices. From 1619 on, ghosting Blackness from the book of wild has been systemic. Herein, Black writers converge to tell the stories of wildness bent through Black prisms. Essential reading, no matter your color.”—J. Drew Lanham, author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with NatureTable of ContentsForewordMemory DivineCarolyn Finney IntroductionErin Sharkey An Aspect of FreedomAma Codjoe A Family VacationGlynn Pogue This Land Is My LandSean Hill Confronting the Names on This LandLauret Savoy An Urban Farmer’s AlmanacA Twenty-First-Century Reflection on Benjamin Banneker’s Almanacs and Other Astronomical PhenomenaErin Sharkey Magic AlleyRonald L. Greer II Concentric Memory: Re-membering Our Way into the FutureNaima Penniman There Was a Tremendous SoftnessMichael Kleber-Diggs Water and StoneA Ceremony for Audre Lorde in Three PartsAlexis Pauline Gumbs Here’s How I Let Them Come Closekatie robinson About the Contributors XX

Read more less

Book SynopsisDrawn from the environments of northern Vermont and the South of France, the poems in Rooms and Their Airs explore the interface of the human and natural worlds, further eroding that distinction with each poem. The verse here merges subject and object, often giving voice to natural phenomena -- a vernal pool, a fossil, a beam of light. These poems sparkle with humor, sophisticated word play, and intellectual examination, reflecting an elegant and contagious curiosity about history, language, and the world. Linked poems give voice to garden vegetables while drawing inspiration from the archival illustrations in The Medieval Handbook. A mother and daughter's trip to see France's cave paintings uncovers living vestiges in prehistoric depictions and reaffirms the enduring nature of art. With this collection, Jody Gladding cements her reputation as the literary heir to A. R. Ammons, Gustaf Sobin, and Lorine Niedecker.Trade Review"Gladding writes with astounding freshness about essential daily acts that millions perform. That freshness derives in part from the wholeness of her vision (and, one imagines, her life), in which mothering and birthing, for example, are indissoluble from writing. Rooms and Their Airs is a nourishing work." --Poets' Quarterly "In cadences uncannily imbued with the exaltations, strivings, and hesitancies of human thought, Jody Gladding limns interior and exterior worlds like no other. Words atomize on the page; pacing itself becomes a radical and spiritual force, elemental as the trees, stones, landscapes, skies, which infuse these meticulously exploratory and wondrous poems. Gladding paints with great grace 'the broken / surface where business / must go on' and the inexplicable universe that contains it, the textures and intricacies of the human mind that strives to grasp while knowing it can only partly understand." --Laurie Sheck, author of Captivity "Jody Gladding's poems are original, beautiful, and fierce, sometimes enigmatic, but never gratuitously, only faithfully so. They bring to their world (our world) a unique mix of light, lightness, and depth: a world in which human feeling is not all the author's concern--but more rare, like the human face in Bernifal." --Jean Valentine, author of Door in the Mountain "Jody Gladding combines deft cadences with an elemental, earthy vision. Gardening, marriage, the seasons and their moons intertwine memorably here. I was especially moved by a sequence of brief poems on Gladding's young daughter, framed in their turn by two evocative accounts of subterranean explorations in the Dordogne." --John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn Fancy Beasts, the author of Hallelujah Blackout and Mosquito takes on California, the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism -- in short, the modern American media culture, which provides obscene foil for his personal legacies of violence and violation. This pivotal book captures the turning point in a life of abuse, in which the recovering victim/perpetrator puzzles through the paradigm of son-to-husband-to-father. Frenetic, hilarious, and fearless, these poems are a workout -- vigorous and raw. Yet they are also composed and controlled, pared down and sculpted, with a disarming narrative simplicity and directness. Even when dealing with toxic content, the point of view is always genuine and trustworthy. This stunning achievement marks Alex Lemon's best work yet.Trade Review"A master of negative empathy, Lemon spelunks through the brain's darker convolutions and clearly enjoys testing the reader's limits. --Library Journal, starred review "Full of raw energy, up-to-date in its slang and its jump cuts, effervescent with the playfulness and sometimes the angers of youth, the third collection from Lemon conveys a likable, outsized personality." --Publishers Weekly "Life cleverly and joyfully rages in Alex Lemon's poems."--Major Jackson "Alex Lemon dazzles us with his ability to slice straight through nerve and marrow on his way to the heart and mind of the matter."--Tracy K. Smith "Fancy Beasts is a terrific book by one of the best younger poets at work today."--Kevin Prufer "This book will likely appeal most to twenty-somethings with an emo/hipster bent, but even older readers will be impressed by Lemon's calculated audacity."--Library Journal (starred review) "Full of raw energy, up-to-date in its slang and its jump cuts, effervescent with the playfulness and sometimes the angers of youth, the third collection from Lemon (Hallelujah Blackout) conveys a likable, outsized personality; it should also work well in tandem with the Texas-based poet's forthcoming memoir, Happy (Scribner, 2010). Like Tony Hoagland, Lemon is often self-conscious about the volatilities his poems convey, about their almost giddy tonalities, but he will not apologize for himself: adult life is a scary gift, a fast trip, a set of close encounters with 'this fizzing pier life.'"--Publishers Weekly

Read more less

Book SynopsisInfluenced by both the "gray, sinister sea" near the village where Yi Lu grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and the beauty of the sea in the books she read as a child, Sea Summit is a collection of paradox and questioning. The sea is an impossible force to the poet: it is both a majestic force that predates man, and something to carry with us wherever we go, to be put "by an ancient rattan chair," so we can watch "its waves toss" from above. Exploring the current ecological crisis and our complicated relationship to the wildness around us, Yi Lu finds something more complex than a traditional nature poet might in the mysterious connection between herself and the forces of nature represented by the boundless ocean. Translated brilliantly by the acclaimed poet Fiona Sze-Lorrain, this collection of poems introduces an important contemporary Chinese poet to English-language readers.Trade ReviewPraise for Sea Summit "Slippery, resonant poetry full of nuanced and subtle scene-making. Sea Summit makes a strong case for Yi's poetic importance beyond her linguistic and national borders."--Wayne Miller "Yi enters the 'gigantic network' of nature, the 'rowdy conference room' of the sea summit, and they, in turn, pass through her, resulting in poems of particular intensity, mystery, and transaction. This is the visionary potential of ecopoetry: a practice that invites the presence of wind, butterfly, storm to meet and disrupt us, just as they disrupt and interrupt each other and the rest of the world."--Melissa Kwasny "This communal and visceral experience reminds me of the theatre... Yi Lu's images are masterful in a way that, perhaps, only a theatre scenographer might envision. They reflect, support, and converse with the condition of the speaker. And, like curtains, these private experiences are torn open in a theater where there is no fourth wall; as we read, we're immersed in each scene, each poem, via the stage that is Yi Lu's sensitive and poignant poetry."--The Literary Review "The poetry sings and pulses with life--the unconquerable spirit of the world shown in imagistic flashes of elegance."--Heavy Feather Review

Read more less

Book SynopsisOver the past 150 years, communities have focused their attention on enhancing quality of life, health and wellness, and the greening of their environments through the provision of park and recreation services and amenities. The greening and beautification of communities as well as tying recreation services to clean economic development provide a direct connection between the work public park and recreation departments and community development. This text asks students to consider important questions, such as: What are the most important elements of a livable community? In what type of community they would like to live? How important are building social connections amongst family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and others? How are such relationships developed and sustained? What types of organizations are more likely to create such opportunities for building ones social capital? What agencies in the community are concerned with addressing environmental degradation and on the flipside enhancing community beautification and greening? All of these questions point toward the importance of public parks and recreation and its community development efforts. Community Parks & Recreation: An Introduction is organized into three major parts. Part I focuses on the History and Philosophical Foundations of Public Parks and Recreation. The major intent of this section is to provide an underpinning to assist the student in understanding the major dimensions of public parks and recreation and its impact socially, culturally, environmentally and economically. Part II of the book focuses on Managerial and Administrative Aspects of Park and Recreation Systems. This section of the book provides practical strategies for administrative activities, planning, marketing, budgeting, engaging the public and land acquisition. Part III of the book is focused on The Public Sector Service Provision in Parks and Recreation. This section of the book focuses on program and service delivery including chapters dealing with programming for community recreation, youth programming, programming for adults and seniors, programming special events and community-based therapeutic recreation. The authors of this text all share a deep interest in community, parks, and/or recreation services. At various times in their careers, they have have served as playground leaders, recreation specialists, youth leaders, community therapeutic recreation specialists, recreation center directors, recreation supervisors and/or directors of parks and recreation. The authors hold a strong commitment to community parks and recreation that is clearly reflected in this new text.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisSince Roy Bedichek's influential ""Adventures with a Texas Naturalist"", no book has attempted to explore the uniqueness of Texas nature, or reflected the changes in the human landscape that have accelerated since Bedichek's time. ""Pride of Place"" updates Bedichek's discussion by acknowledging the increased urbanization and the loss of wildspace in today's state. It joins other recent collections of regional nature writing while demonstrating what makes Texas uniquely diverse. These fourteen essays are held together by the story of Texas pride - the sense that from West Texas to the Coastal Plains, the people and the landscape are bold and unique. This book addresses all the major regions of Texas. Beginning with Roy Bedichek's essay ""Still Water,"" it includes Carol Cullar and Barbara ""Barney"" Nelson on the Rio Grande region of West Texas, John Graves's evocative ""Kindred Spirits"" on Central Texas, Joe Nick Patoski's celebration of Hill Country springs, Pete Gunter on the Piney Woods, David Taylor on North Texas, Gary Clark and Gerald Thurmond on the Coastal Plains, Ray Gonzales and Marian Haddad on El Paso, Stephen Harrigan and Wyman Meinzer on West Texas, and Naomi Shihab Nye on urban San Antonio. This anthology will appeal not only to those interested in regional history, natural history, and the environmental issues Texans face, but also to all who say gladly, ""I'm from Texas.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlthough spare, sweeping landscapes may appear “empty,” plains and prairies afford a rich, unique aesthetic experience—one of quiet sunrises and dramatic storms, hidden treasures and abundant wildlife, infinite horizons and omnipresent wind, all worthy of contemplation and celebration.In this series of narratives, photographs, and hand-drawn maps, Tyra Olstad blends scholarly research with first-hand observation to explore topics such as wildness and wilderness, travel and tourism, preservation and conservation, expectations and acceptance, and even dreams and reality in the context of parks, prairies, and wild, open places. In so doing, she invites readers to reconsider the meaning of “emptiness” and ask larger, deeper questions such as: how do people experience the world? How do we shape places and how do places shape us? Above all, what does it mean to experience that exhilarating effect known as Zen of the plains?

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlthough spare, sweeping landscapes may appear "empty," plains and prairies afford a rich, unique aesthetic experience—one of quiet sunrises and dramatic storms, hidden treasures and abundant wildlife, infinite horizons and omnipresent wind, all worthy of contemplation and celebration. In this series of narratives, photographs, and hand-drawn maps, Tyra Olstad blends scholarly research with first-hand observation to explore topics such as wildness and wilderness, travel and tourism, preservation and conservation, expectations and acceptance, and even dreams and reality in the context of parks, prairies, and wild, open places. In so doing, she invites readers to reconsider the meaning of "emptiness" and ask larger, deeper questions such as: how do people experience the world? How do we shape places and how do places shape us? Above all, what does it mean to experience that exhilarating effect known as Zen of the plains?

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTake an exciting journey through the year with this weekly planner inspired by America’s breathtaking national parks. This unique planner invites you on an enlightened planning and scheduling experience, whether for work, school, or your daily life, from July 2024 through December 2025. Thoughtfully composed to guide you through 18 months led by exciting excursions and facts based on your favorite national parks, this planner is designed for outdoor adventurers, bucket listers, and nature lovers alike.  This planner features:   Stunning full-page artistic interpretations of the parks to inspire introspection and appreciation. Weekly quotes to inform your week and spark spiritual nourishment. 18 full-month calendar spreads, from July 2024 through December 2025. 72 weeks with plenty of space to write. Convenient size ideal for carrying in a book bag, briefcase, or purse. E

Read more less

Book SynopsisAdventure through the year with this weekly planner inspired by America’s breathtaking national parks. This unique planner invites you on an enlightened planning and scheduling experience, whether for work, school, or your daily life. Thoughtfully composed to guide you through 18 months led by exciting excursions and facts based on your favorite national parks, this planner is designed for outdoor adventurers, bucket listers, and nature lovers alike.  This planner features:   Stunning full-page artistic interpretations of the parks to inspire introspection and appreciation. Weekly quotes to inform your week and spark spiritual nourishment. 18 full-month calendar spreads. 72 weeks with plenty of space to write. Convenient size ideal for carrying in a book bag, briefcase, or purse. Elastic band closure to help secure your planner or mark your place inside. This

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of inspirational and meaningful quotes perfect for every lover of the great outdoors.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn our technology-driven, workaday world, connecting with nature has never before been more essential. A Wilder Life, a beautiful oversized lifestyle book by the team behind the popular Wilder Quarterly, gives readers indispensable ideas for interacting with the great outdoors. Learn to plant a night-blooming garden, navigate by reading the stars, build an outdoor shelter, make dry shampoo, identify insects, cultivate butterflies in a backyard, or tint your clothes with natural dyes. Like a modern-day Whole Earth Catalog, A Wilder Life gives us DIY projects and old-world skills that are being reclaimed by a new generation. Divided into sections pertaining to each season and covering self-reliance, growing and gardening, cooking, health and beauty, and wilderness, and with photos and illustrations evocative of the great outdoors, A Wilder Life shows that getting in touch with nature is possible no matter who you are and—more important—where you are.Trade Review“The new book that’s becoming our natural beauty obsession. . . . It’s a comprehensive, coffee table–worthy, DIY project–packed manual for enjoying all four seasons through interaction with nature—including recipes (foraged elderflower champagne! Pumpkin butter!), gardening and home tips. . . . It’s also a particularly good resource for natural-beauty buffs.”—Vogue.com “Wander through the pages of A Wilder Life in awe and appreciation. . . . [The book] urges readers to garden with a purpose—to stew, brew, can and pot. . . . . Nature isn’t just a screen saver. It’s a soul saver.” —The New York Times Book Review “Will smarten up any side table.”—Domino “A beautiful, informative, thoughtful compilation of facts, recipes, DIY instructions, and more—a book designed to put you a little more in touch with nature and a lot more in touch with yourself.”—Organic Lifestyle Magazine

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less