Teaser Tuesday: Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World by Kathleen Dean Moore

At darkfall, we all trip to the edge of the water, standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the sand, hoping to hear the fish sing. The breeze is warm and piney, sliding out of the forest onto the water, lifting our hair.

-- Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World by Kathleen Dean Moore, from an essay about the toadfish, also called the western singing fish.

Moore is an award-winning nature writer and professor of philosophy at Oregon State University.  This edition of Holdfast is part of the OSU Press Northwest Reprint series. It is available on amazon or direct from OSU Press. 

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Naturalist and philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore meditates on connection and separation in these twenty-one elegant, probing essays. Using the metaphor of holdfasts—the structures that attach seaweed to rocks with a grip strong enough to withstand winter gales—she examines our connections to our own bedrock.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Abi at 4 the Love of Books is hosting in May. Please visit her fun, inspirational blog.

I picked up two books last week from the "Adopt a Book" self at the Helena, Montana library.  It is their way of distributing withdrawn library copies.  I snagged one for myself and one for my hubby.



A Thousand Bells at Noon : A Roman's Guide to the Secret & Pleasures of His Native City by G. Franco Romagnoli. This looks wonderful! I know I read about it somewhere, but I can't remember where.



Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown by Maureen Waller.  This one is for my husband who has been in the mood for books on English history ever since watching The Tudors. 

Kitchen Remodel, Week Twelve: The Great Wall

Nothing visible happened in our kitchen last week. Electricians and plumbers did invisible things, so our appliances turn on.  And Ella Fitzgerald found a new hiding place.

We did make progress on the outside part of this project.  There are now walls outlining where the stairs will be from the garage up to the kitchen door.  Still no stairs, but we can now at least envision where they will be.

I've been reading Blood From a Stone, one of Donna Leon's mysteries set in Venice.  Even in the middle of a murder investigation, Commissario Guido Brunetti always goes home for lunch, where his wife -- a college professor with an apparently light work load -- makes him incredible lunches.  They eat pasta or risotto every day.  It's making me crazy!  Since I try to avoid carbs, I go for months without eating pasta or rice.  The Brunettis' lunches have me fantasizing about noodles!

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World by Kathleen Dean Moore

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I am trying to follow all Book Beginning participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING




In the green, light-shot sea along the Oregon coast, bullwhip kelp lean toward land on the incoming tides and swirl seaward as the water fall away, never letting go of their grip on the ocean floor.

-- Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World,  a much-appreciated reprint of collection of essays by award-winning nature writer Kathleen Dean Moore. This edition is part of the OSU Press Northwest Reprint series.

This is available on amazon or direct from OSU Press. 

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Naturalist and philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore meditates on connection and separation in these twenty-one elegant, probing essays. Using the metaphor of holdfasts—the structures that attach seaweed to rocks with a grip strong enough to withstand winter gales—she examines our connections to our own bedrock.

Review: A Sand County Almanac

A Sand County Almanac was published in 1949, a year after Aldo Leopold's death, and remains a formative work of conservation philosophy.

There are three parts to the book. The first, the Almanac section, is a collection of 12 essays, labeled by month, discussing the "wild things" of Leopold's farm in the "sand counties" region of Wisconsin. Birds are a recurring topic, as are trees, prairie grass, weather, hunting, fishing, and the ecology that connects them all.

The second part, "Sketches Here and There," includes essays inspired by places: Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, Arizona and New Mexico, Chihuaha and Sonora, Oregon and Utah, and Manitoba. Although the subjects vary, Leopold's consistent theme is how human access to wilderness and mechanization – well-intentioned or not – has altered the land's natural system.

In the last section, "The Upshot," Leopold raises philosophical questions about why and how to correct the ecological imbalances created by man's use of the land. He advocated a "land ethic" that considers aesthetic and other non-economic interests when making land-use decisions.

Leopold's tone is musing rather than didactic. His position could be described as small-c conservative, with the goal of conserving the wild parts of nature while accommodating man's use of her resources. He acknowledges the paradox inherent in these goals:

But all conservation of wilderness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.

He offers no solution to this dilemma, criticizing private land owners, government programs, and consumers alike. He sees conservation as "too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government," and concludes that an "ethical obligation on the part of the private owner is the only visible remedy for these situations." But once proposed, Leopold offers no method to create such an ethic. We still wrestle with the same environmental conundrum.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

Aldo Leopold inspired many environmentalists and conservation organizations, including the Property & Environment Research Center (PERC) in Montana and the Sand County Foundation, based in Madison, Wisconsin, which manages Leopold's old farm.  Among other things, the Sand County Foundation works on removing dams to restore Wisconsin's natural floodplain.

A Sand County Almanac has been on my TBR shelf for years.  I finally read it as one of my non-fiction choices for the TBR challenges I am doing this year: the MT. TBR CHALLENGE (hosted by Bev on My Reader's Block) and the OFF THE SHELF CHALLENGE (hosted by Bonnie on Bookish Ardour).