I am a highly experienced outdoorsman, musician, songwriter, and backcountry guide who chose teaching as a day job. As a writer, however, I am a promoter of creative and literary nonfiction, especially nonfiction that features a thematic thread, whether it be philosophical, conservation, historical, or even unique experiential. The thread I used for thirty years of teaching high school and honors English was the thread of Conservation, as exemplified by authors like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Edward O. Wilson, Al Gore, Henry David Thoreau, as well as many other more contemporary authors.
I felt like I was actually in the Alaskan wilds, ocean kayaking, hiking, camping, and exploring while reading Kim Heacoxās book. His descriptions, sensory imagery, and recounting of adventure and experiences both on and off the water made me feel like I was on the trip with him.
His interaction with wild animals was amazing and often was so exciting that it gave me chills. In addition, I enjoyed learning much about the amazing cultural and natural history of Alaska. The places, the people, and even the ancient past all came to life as I lost myself in this wonderful compilation of essays.
Throughout the book ran the poignant thread of human impact and change, which made me more aware and ready to vote for and write for change.ļæ½ļæ½
In this coming-of-middle-age memoir, Kim Heacox, writing in the tradition of Abbey, McPhee, and Thoreau, discovers an Alaska reborn from beneath a massive glacier, where flowers emerge from boulders, moose swim fjords, and bears cross crevasses with Homeric resolve. In such a place Heacox finds that people are reborn too, and their lives begin anew with incredible journeys, epiphanies, and successes. All in an America free of crass commercialism and overdevelopment.
Braided through the larger story are tales of gold prospectors and the cabin they built sixty years ago; John Muir and his intrepid terrier, Stickeen; and a dynamic geologyā¦
I love the cold and snow, so itās no surprise that I ended up studying glaciers and ice sheets. I am also a big fan of history and a professor of Environmental Science who teaches climate and climate change to 200+ college students a year. I grew up reading nonfiction, and nothing changedāthatās my genre. Reading about history and how others have experienced our planet, especially far away and unusual places, intrigues me. My passion is communicating science by writing, speaking, and teaching, and these five books Iāve recommended all do an excellent job of making the science and history of Greenland accessible to everyone.
This book had me shivering. Every chapter introduced another character and another set of often frightening but exhilarating arctic adventures spanning more than 100 years.
I found myself imagining what it must have felt like to cross Greenlandās ice on foot or to have spent the winter living in a rat warren of snow caves at the summit of the ice sheet with the Wegner expedition over the winter of 1930-1931.
An excellent read with well-referenced details and history galore. I couldnāt put it down and read the whole book in two nights.
A riveting, urgent account of the explorers and scientists racing to understand the rapidly melting ice sheet in Greenland, a dramatic harbinger of climate change
āJon Gertner takes readers to spots few journalists or even explorers have visited. The result is a gripping and important book.āāElizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prizeāwinning author of The Sixth Extinction
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post ā¢ The Christian Science Monitor ā¢ Library Journal
Greenland: a remote, mysterious island five times the size of California but with a population of just 56,000. The ice sheet that covers it isā¦
A beautifully told story about a Namibian family who created a real-life Noahās Ark in the desert. Marieta van der Merwe and her late husband Nick turned their cattle ranch into a refuge for thousands of wounded or orphaned animals who canāt make it on their own in the wild. This book, full of wonder and gentle souls, has special meaning for me. I met Barbara Bennett, a North Carolina University literature professor, when I was sent to Namibia to write a story about Harnas Wildlife Sanctuary for the Guardian and we were both volunteering. Afterward, I introduced her to my New York literary agent who sold the book. Itās so vividly written that it allowed me to relive my experiences of daily mischief of the baboons, walking full-grown lions in the desert, sleeping with cheetahs under the stars, and watching the giant thunderstorms on the porch with a menagerieā¦
It chronicles the unique Harnas Wildlife Foundation in Namibia, where Marieta van der Merwe and her family, former wealthy cattle farmers, have sold land to buy and care for embattled wildlife.
