Bright Stars, Dark Trees, Clear Water: Nature Writing from North of the Border (A Nonpareil Book) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567920195 ISBN 13: 9781567920192

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2001

Synopsis

This marvelous anthology gathers writers from the United States, Canada, and Europe to provide the best collection of North American nature writing ever put between covers. This is a vast canvas, but Wayne Grady covers it splendidly, from Pehr Kalm's "Travels in North America" (1753) to Gretel Ehrlich's moving essay about her encounters with seals in the frozen wastelands of the Arctic Circle (1992). It combines pieces by well-known and much beloved writers (Audubon, Seton, Mowat, Thoreau, Matthiessen, and Peterson among them) with lesser known texts by writers whose work will come as revelations.

Here is a geographic diversity that ranges from Henry Beston's lyrical description of bird life on the St. Lawrence to Barry Lopez's account of Banks Island in the Arctic. While nothing can replace the great books from which these excerpts were culled, these thirty-seven selections (often full chapters or extended passages) comprise the very best anthology of nature writing that has ever been assembled about Canada and the Arctic regions. These are writers who all felt the call of the wild, and who wrote about their experiences with passion for the land, compassion for its inhabitants, and a genuine sense of wonder and often humor that make for hours of fascinating reading.

Some of the authors featured in Bright Stars, Dark Trees, Clear Water:
John James Audubon, Henry Beston, John Burroughs, Gretel Ehrlich, Florence Page Jaques, Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Farley Mowat, John Muir, Grey Owl, Roger Tory Peterson, Ernest Thompson Seton, Henry David Thoreau, Catharine Par Traill, Walt Whitman

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

There is much beauty in these 37 pieces of natural history writing, spanning 240 years and collected by Grady (The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories). Most expected authors are present--Audubon, Thoreau, Whitman, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Peter Matthiessen, Farley Mowat and Barry Lopez--as well as many lesser-known writers. In a rambling introduction, Grady states that ``Increased engagement with nature produces not only an increase in knowledge; it also produces wonder.'' Both are admirably blended in Louise de Kiriline Lawrence's 1954 piece about the red-eyed vireo, which, ``in looks and comportment... is such a smooth and elegant bird.'' Besides being similarly successful, Harold Horwood's 1987 selection opens wonderfully: ``I have seen the willets dancing in the springtime on the shore, dancing not only on the short salt grass... but dancing in air, like butterflies, or salamanders wrapped in flame.'' The flora and fauna of Canada come alive in this pleasing anthology.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1567920195
• ISBN 13: 9781567920192
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368