Thursday, February 15, 2018

Readalikes: If you enjoyed February's selection . . .

If you enjoyed The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams, then you might also like these other books, articles, and television series recommended by our discussion group members:

  • Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life by Edward O. Wilson
  • "The Wildest Idea on Earth" by Tony Hiss, Smithsonian, September 2014, an interview with Wilson and an overview of his plan. 
  • This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein
  • The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
  • Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
  • The Monkey Wrench Gang and other works by Edward Abbey
  • The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
  • A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
  • The Yosemite and other works by John Muir
  • The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston
  • Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors
  • The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings and other works by Wendell Berry
  • A Good Day to Die and other works by Jim Harrison
  • An Outside Chance and other works by Thomas McGuane
  • The National Parks: America's Best Idea PBS television series directed by Ken Burns

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

February Not Fiction Book Discussions

The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams is one writer's personal exploration of a public and shared landscape, and of what, if anything, separates wilderness from civilization.

Williams wrote these twelve essays about twelve parks of interest to her as a commemoration of the National Park Service's centennial year, 2015. They are part memoir, part natural history, and part social critique. She says, "This is a book about relationships inside America's national parks, and as is always the case with relations, the bonds formed, severed, and renewed within these federal lands are complicated. They are also fundamental to who we are as a country. Whether historical or ecological, political or personal, the connective tissue that holds together or tears apart our public lands begins with 'We, the People.'" Williams does more than memorialize America's National Parks; she also asks us to consider, "What is the relevance of our national parks in the twenty-first century--and how might these public commons bring us back home to a united state of humility?"

What do you think? Williams told the Los Angeles Review of Books that "Choosing the 12 [parks] was like creating a dinner party. I asked myself: 'Who would I like to invite to dinner for a rich and varied conversation?'" Have you visited any of these twelve national parks or any others? Are there any that you would especially like to visit? Which of Williams' essays most interested or affected you? Williams acknowledges that she is "writing out of her limitations"--not as a historian, not as a scientist, not as a government employee--but as a concerned citizen sharing her thoughts and feelings. What does she contribute to the conversation about our national parks? Williams openly shares her own opinions in her essays. How does she include differing points of view? Williams told the Los Angeles Review of Books that "With The Hour of Land each of the 12 national parks is a unique landscape. It made sense that each one deserved its own form, one that mirrored the story I was trying to tell." Which essays did you find most successful in terms of form? Does the book work as a whole? What holds it together? Williams says the photographs in the book "create an emotional landscape alongside the physical one explored through each park in this book." How do the images and text work together to create a conversation and affect your reading of the book? Perhaps the most important questions Williams raises in The Hour of Land look into the future. How would you answer them: "What is the relevance of our national parks in the twenty-first century--and how might these public commons bring us back home to a united state of humility?" She notes that with the national parks there is a constant search for balance between the missions of education and preservation. How do we determine which mission should guide our National Park Service for its next 100 years?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, February 6, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, February 15, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Monday, February 5, 2018

January Not Fiction Book Discussions and Readalikes

For January we read On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor, as Moor's subtitle indicates, a true essay or attempt to understand trails of all kinds.

Moor first became interested in trails while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. He thought he would write a traditional memoir about his time on the AT, with just a short chapter on trails and their history and symbolism, but then he found himself much more interested in the trails themselves. His book expanded to investigate the world's oldest fossil trails; insect communication and large herd migration; the evolution of human movement from footpaths to wagon trails to the Interstate Highway system; the history of modern hiking trails; and even the vast communication network of the Internet. We follow Moor as he follows this desire line, weaving his own experiences hiking and investigating trails into his narrative history of trails, moving from the minuscule and ancient to the vast and philosophical. Moor says, "I learned that the soul of a trail--its trail-ness--is not bound up in dirt and rocks; it is immaterial, evanescent, as fluid as air. The essence lies in its function: how it continuously evolves to serve the needs of its users. . . . To deftly navigate this world, we will need to understand how we make trails, and how trails make us."

In our discussions, we considered the following questions. What do you think? Moor says, "Thru-hiking is metamorphosis . . ." Have you ever done something like thru-hiking the AT that changed you profoundly? What was it? Why did you do it? Did you experience any paradigm shifts or conceive of any questions regarding things you previously took for granted, as Moor did with trails? Moor asks, "Why do we hike?" Are you a hiker? Or perhaps a city walker? Why do you walk?
In an essay for The New Yorker, Why the Most Popular Hiking Memoirs Don't Go the Distance, Moor discusses what makes a successful hiking memoir. He says, "The questions arises: Why are the three most famous accounts of hiking three of the world's most famous long-distance trails written by people who did not hike the whole distance? He is referring to Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage. Have you read these books? Read Moor's article and see what you think of his assessment of their popularity. What genre is Moor's book? Which of his topics did you find most interesting? Does he create an "engaging emotional trajectory" for his readers? Were there any that you wanted to know more about? Moor notes that the creation of modern hiking trails and wilderness areas brings up the question of what is wild and what is civilized. Looking ahead to next month's book, The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams, what, if anything, do you think separates wilderness from civilization, and how should we work to preserve wild spaces while still allowing the kind of access that reminds us of their importance?

If you enjoyed On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor, then you might also like these reading suggestions from our discussion group members:

  • The three hiking memoirs Moor discusses in his New Yorker essay, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho.
  • Field Notes from a Catastrophe and The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert.
  • The Snow Leopard and Shadow Country by Peter Mathiessen.
  • The Places in Between by Rory Stewart.
  • John McPhee's books about geology. 
  • The Thousand-Mile Summer by Colin Fletcher.
  • Overland in Search of America by Philip Caputo.
  • A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor.
  • Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon.
  • Palm at the End of the Mind by Wallace Stevens.
  • The novels of Cormac McCarthy, such as The Border Trilogy and The Road.
  • The article Life on the Edge by Terence Monmaney, from Smithsonian April 2017.
  • The article Trails and Tribulations by Abigail Tucker from Smithsonian July-August 2017.
We hope you will join the discussion and share any of your reading suggestions related to On Trails here on the blog.