Wild Rides and Wildflowers: Philosophy and Botany with Bikes - Softcover

Abbott, Scott; Rushforth, Sam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1937226239 ISBN 13: 9781937226237

Publisher: Torrey House Press, 2014

Synopsis

"Abbott and Rushforth have a knack for entertaining readers."
—BOOKLIST

Two university professors set out to repeatedly bike the Great Western Trail, observing and writing about its variations with every season. The accounts of their adventures, however, refuse to be limited to flora and fauna. In Wild Rides and Wildflowers, Abbott and Rushforth share their deeply personal explorations of the male psyche, true friendship, biking, and botany.

SCOTT ABBOTT is the author of a book about Freemasonry and the German novel, and of two books about travel and literature (with Zarko Radakovic): Repetitions and Vampires and A Reasonable Dictionary. He was the jazz critic for the Salt Lake Observer and has translated several works by Austrian writer Peter Handke. He is professor of integrated studies, philosophy, and humanities at Utah Valley University.

SAM RUSHFORTH is former dean of the College of Science and Health at Utah Valley University. Under his watch, the university has grown to thirty–three thousand students. He studies aquatic botany and wetland ecology and has published more than one hundred papers and books. He has mentored nearly forty graduate students, who are now working all over the world. He lives in Orem, Utah. ​

About this title

About the Author

SCOTT ABBOTT is the author of a book about Freemasonry and the German novel, and of two books about travel and literature (with Zarko Radakovic): Repetitions and Vampires and A Reasonable Dictionary. He was the jazz critic for the Salt Lake Observer and has translated several works by Austrian writer Peter Handke. He is professor of integrated studies, philosophy, and humanities at Utah Valley University.

SAM RUSHFORTH is former dean of the College of Science and Health at Utah Valley University. Under his watch, the university has grown to thirty–three thousand students. He studies aquatic botany and wetland ecology and has published more than one hundred papers and books. He has mentored nearly forty graduate students, who are now working all over the world. He lives in Orem, Utah.

Reviews

Although Utah Valley University professors Abbott and Rushforth hail from very different academic backgrounds—Abbott teaches humanities and philosophy, while Rushforth is currently the school’s dean of science and health—for years they have shared a passion for tooling their mountain bikes down Utah’s slice of the Great Western Trail. When they set out to write a book about their biking observations, they envisioned an inspired hybrid of tranquil philosophy and nature writing. As it turned out, their meddlesome middle-aged angst and jousting personalities entered into the mix, and what emerges here is more of a mixed record, in a stylized journal format, of their spirited verbal exchanges, insights into both biking and academia, and their ardently expressed values about preserving America’s endangered wilderness. What sounds on the surface like fodder merely for a longer magazine piece actually works admirably well across its 300-plus pages, mostly because of Abbott and Rushforth’s knack for entertaining readers with quirky philosophical quips, layman botany lessons, and wittily delivered true-life anecdotes. --Carl Hays

Edition details

• Publisher: Torrey House Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1937226239
• ISBN 13: 9781937226237
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 377