Book Review Wednesday: Landscapes

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books about landscapes.

Serengeti: The Eternal Beginning (by Boyd Norton, $35, Fulcrum, 2011): Serengeti is not a book of landscape photography so much as an homage to a famous ecosystem: the Serengeti. Boyd spent 26 years photographing its wildlife, and he compiles his work here, pairing them with essays about the need to protect the Serengeti from change. The ecosystem is fragile, he says, and its majestic species are in danger of disappearing forever. As a platform for conservation, Serengeti is a huge success. As a book of photography, it falls somewhat flat, though a few of its images are stunning. Paired with Norton's memories of Africa and the surreal experiences he's had there, the book makes for a unique mixture of activism and art.

Planet Ice (photographs by James Martin; text by various authors, $40, Braided River, 2009): You've heard it before: Polar ice caps are melting, glaciers are getting smaller, the world is slowly warming. But unless you've been to Alaska or Antarctica or another icy wilderness, you may not be able to visualize what exactly we're losing. Planet Ice presents impressive ice landscapes, wildlife photography, and scientific diagrams, interspersed with educational and personal essays about ice and our relationship to it. The most impressive thing about the book is its variety: It depicts ice in incredibly disparate ways, proving that a climate we think of as static, frigid, and distant actually teems with life. An excellent book for a science classroom.

Book Review Wednesday: The Human-Animal Relationship

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books about the connection between humans and animals.

The Animal Connection (by Pat Shipman, $27, W.W. Norton, 2011): From the time humans first hunted with tools, our evolution has depended on a complex relationship with animals. Shipman, an archaeologist and anthropologist, provides extensive evidence for this fact, pointing to the greatest leaps in human development: tool use, language, and domestication. Less sentimental than the books below, The Animal Connection is a nuanced, intelligent book well worth the read.

Forbidden Creatures (by Peter Laufer, $20, Lyons Press, 2010): It's hard to put down a book when, in the first chapter, you meet a woman whose beloved pet chimp brutally attacked her best friend. Questions such as what compelled her to own a chimp, why did the chimp attack, and how did she get a chimp to rural Connecticut, push the story onward. In an engaging first-person exploration of the world of exotic pets and animal smuggling, we meet compelling characters, human and non. Laufer maintains respect for python smugglers and monkey owners, while still raising issues about the destruction inherent in the exotic pet trade.

Book Review Wednesday: Life on Rivers

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books about rivers.

Up on the River: People and Wildlife of the Upper Mississippi (by John Madson, $20, University of Iowa Press, 2011): Drawing on a lifetime of experience along the banks of the Mississippi, Madson shares a multifaceted and engaging depth of insight about the river's interacting parts. Up on the River shifts between personal and historical anecdotes, conservational concerns, and fish-wrangling trips down the river. From the "civilization" of Harper's Ferry to the decimation of sturgeon and shellfish populations, Madson depicts a river that has changed significantly but not lost its soul. His witty, critical tone colors him a native and true scholar of the river. This reissue is a brisk read despite the specificity of its subject.

Once Upon a River (by Bonnie Jo Campbell, W.W. Norton & Co., $26, 2011): Margo Crane's story is the story of life on Michigan's Stark and Kalamazoo rivers. After a series of violent calamities strip the alluring 16-year-old protagonist of her innocence, she turns to the only thing she can trust: the river. Campbell's portrait of a silent beauty who prefers to see the world through iron sights comes through with blunt prose that suits his resilient characters and stark surroundings. This style is most effective in descriptions of tense moments of survival (much of the novel), with Margo training her .22 on a regal ten-point buck or treading lightly on frost-covered ground. Once Upon a River succeeds thanks to Margo's depth. Like a more seductive Huck Finn, her outward simplicity belies her actual complexity.

Book Review Wednesday: Sense of Place

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books that tell the complex story of the land in a multitude of ways. 

Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country (by Marc S. Hendrix, $24, Mountain Press, 2011): The geologic manifesto of Yellowstone’s features should be dust-painted, wrinkled, and worn at the seams, backpacked in for reading with the hot springs and old sea floor literally under your feet. Geology comprehensively explains both the formation of specific sites and the entire region's natural history. Its gems are the extensive illustrative graphics and glossy photos. It's the only hiking guide that could sate the visitor who wants to hug rocks, touch and understand this place.

Like No Other Place: The Sandhills of Nebraska (by David A. Owen, $58, The Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago, 2010): The wide arms of Owen’s silver-tinted photographs stretch along the hills and ranches where he briefly lived (Ellsworth, Nebraska, population: 13). Every speck, cow, reservoir, and wheel track fascinates. His accompanying vignettes of the people and their history are largely undistilled from their first voices. This is a land you want to see through a lens, an experience you wouldn't understand looking out a window at 60 mph, or even standing next to a single shrub for a week.

A Conversation with "We Were an Island" Author Peter Blanchard

In 1949, Art and Nan Kellam moved to Placentia Island, off the coast of Maine, to live alone for 36 years, in love with the land and each other. The couple loved nothing better than the days when fog enveloped the island, leaving them in complete seclusion. When Art died, Nan deeded the island to the Nature Conservancy. She also granted access to her daily journals, the couple’s “big-book” manuscript, and all their correspondence to Peter Blanchard, the island's steward. In 2010, Blanchard published their remarkable love story, We Were an Island. We spoke with him about what he found alluring in the life of Art and Nan.

Q: Were Art and Nan environmentalists?

A: They are not the pure, back-to-nature folks — they’re really much more middle American in the sense that they were interested in nature at the start and don’t know terribly much about it. They make these wonderful misidentifications in their descriptions but over time they get binoculars and several field guides.

Book Review Wednesday: Views of the Earth

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books that document the beauty of Earth's surface.

Arctic Sanctuary: Images of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (by Jeff Jones and Laurie Hoyle, $55, University of Chicago Press, 2010): Panoramic images of the remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reveal the tremendously varied zones contained within the 19.5-million-acre refuge, which is unique not just for its size but for its lack of roads or traces of humanity. The book's shape and size — it's roughly 9''-by-14'' and images are shown horizontally — mirror the vast, sweeping Arctic landscape. One gets the sense that this book is only just barely able to contain the huge scenes.

Granite and Grit: A Walker's Guide to the Geology of British Mountains (by Ronald Turnbull, $25, Frances Lincoln, 2011 [paperback]): It's easy to be awed by mountains' beauty and grandeur; it's another matter to understand the science behind geological formations. This book covers both realms, offering hikers in the U.K. a resource by which to fuel their wonder and inspire their journeys. Chapter names like "The Crunch of the Continents" and "A 200-Million-Year Walk over Dufton Pike" hint at the book's immense scale.

36 Acres: A Portrait of the Reed-Turner Woodland Nature Preserve (by Tobin Fraley, $35, Woodland Grove Press, 2010): The Reed-Turner Preserve in Long Grove, Illinois, a village some 35 miles north of Chicago, is tiny compared to the parks that most often inspire book-length photographic documentation. Yet this unique act of intense focus on one 36-acre plot of land is one of the things that make this book so exquisite. The images, arranged by season, remind us that, as Fraley writes, "the beauty of our own backyard is taken for granted."

Book Review Wednesday: Apocalyptic Futures

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books that predict the environmental future, or books whose titles contain colons.

The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future (By Laurence C. Smith, $27, Dutton, 2010): UCLA geography professor Laurence C. Smith convincingly models what he thinks the world will look like in forty years — if humans do nothing to change their ecological footprint. Population, resource depletion, globalization, and climate change will be our defining factors — and perhaps our demise. As the arctic melts and a new frontier opens and becomes fertile, people will choose how they will treat the plethora of new materials and earth opening up to them. Will history repeat itself?  Smith leaves readers on a surprisingly hopeful note.

Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism: Toward Urbanatural Roosting (Ashton Nichols, $85, Pallgrave MacMillan, 2011): Both critically and artfully, Nichols explores how our conceptions of nature have derived from Enlightenment-era ideas (humans and nature are separate) and Romantic poetry (humans and nature are connected). Relying heavily on poetic examples, Nichols also envisions an “urbanatural” future in which we see ourselves as part of the earth, but without a sense of atavism or regression, and how our environments will shift accordingly.

How It Ends: From You to The Universe (By Chris Impey, $27, Norton, 2010): University of Arizona professor Chris Impey takes an astronomer's well-substantiated view on how the apocalypse will look, and how we might get there. Because the events he discusses are so distant, Impey’s tone is celebratory. It’s clear that he loves the subject matter and is in total awe of the universe around him — a sense many of us have lost.

Book Roundup Wednesday: California's Sierra Nevada

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books exploring the Sierra Nevada.

Rise of the Ranges of Light (by David Scott Gilligan, $19, Heyday, 2011): With the precision and knowledge of a science writer and the sensibilities of a poet, Gilligan chronicles the evolution of the world’s fastest rising mountain range. Rise of the Ranges of Light is a continuation of and tribute to John Muir’s classic Mountains of California, with further inspiration from Lao Tzu, Darwin and Homer. From this alone, the reader should guess that the book will be expansive: part geology, part memoir, part philosophy. A pioneer of more holistic science writing, the author recounts the glaciation of the Pleistocene Epoch as vividly as his own ascent of Black Kaweah peak.

The Pacific Crest Trail (by Brian Johnson, $25, Cicerone, 2010): Written by someone who has walked the 2650 mile Pacific Crest Trail three times, The Pacific Crest Trail has the inspiration of experience. The guide is perfect for studying up on the trek before embarking; plan your schedule with the help of Johnson's day by day itineraries for hikers of different speeds, pack your bags with his expert suggestions on gear (whoever thought of bringing an umbrella?), and most importantly, get motivated with his continued assertions that “anyone can do it!” The only downside is that the otherwise informative section by section maps lack contour lines, rendering them useless for routefinding. Bring a topographic map and you'll be all set.

Book Review Wednesday: Nature and Spirituality

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending books that explore the interaction between nature and spirituality. 

Sacred Natural Sites: Conserving Nature and Culture (by Bas Verschuuren et al., $50, Earthscan, 2010): This comprehensive examination of sacred natural sites and the cultures that revere them draws on the diverse scientific backgrounds of its authors for strength. Part literature review, part policy analysis, and part critical discussion of conservation, the book's overarching focus on the ways in which sacred sites help to maintain biological diversity is clear and convincing. A tome worth owning for those already interested in the subject.

GreenDeen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet  (by Ibhrahim Abdul-Matin, $17, Berett-Koehler 2010): With a straightforward, analytical tone, Abdul-Matin frames personal anecdotes and current environmental issues within the tenets of Islam. GreenDeen succeeds in loosely relating scripture, society, and environmental policy without making its subject seem like a square-peg, round-hole issue. By incorporating more general themes, such as "stewardship of the earth," GreenDeen's message is relevant to secular readers as well. 

Book Review Wednesday: To the Extreme

Every Wednesday, we review a selection of new and upcoming books addressing a specific aspect of environmentalism. Today we're recommending tales of adventure at the edge of survival.

When the Killing’s Done (By T.C. Boyle, $27, Penguin Group, 2011): Boyle’s distaste for the empty noise of modernity colors the fictional story of Alma Takesue, a National Park Service biologist in Santa Barbara. The conflict between her and Dave LaJoy, the activist who would prevent her from exterminating the rats of the Channel islands takes readers offshore to the islands' lawless terrain. Like the “thin bellying sheet” of first water that enters a sinking boat, the story's momentum plies back and forth between survival and elimination, consistently human, consistently animal, poetically and energetically written.

Year of the Pig (by Mark Hainds, $17, University of Alabama, 2011): Feral pigs threaten vast portions of U.S. ecosystems, so Hainds, a forester, did good by spending 2007 hog-hunting in 11 states. Hainds’ anecdotes, titled by a tree of each different ecosystem, wield dry humor and the admirable values of a farmer’s son to critique the current state of hunting. His sympathetic intelligence suffuses this seriously funny nonfiction.