Back in July of 2020 (and I hope you’ll forgive my for mentioning that annus horribilis) Mark Avery reviewed Roy Dennis’ then recently published collection of nature essays titled “Cottongrass Summer;” a review in which Mark placed it beside Aldo Leopold’s classic book “A Sand County Almanac” in regard to his perception of both its “quality and worth.”
Back in March 2020, I published a review of Kelly Brenner’s then recently released book “Nature Obscura; a City’s Hidden Natural World.” It is a work by which I was – and still very much remain – much impressed by its overall concept, its content, and its writing style; which is why it continues to be one of the books I still commonly recommend to all seeking a book in which to loose themselves in the wonders of the natural world.
After my beloved wife and daughter, one of the people who has most helped me to survive the madness of this past year is Melissa Harrison. Although we’ve never met in person, hearing her gentle and soothing voice asking me “Hi, how’re you doing?” at the beginning of each episode of her superb “The Stubborn Light of Things” podcast has more times than I can recall helped me to pick up and carry on in the face of all that was wearing me down.
When it comes to classics of American nature writing, Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” likely ranks second only to Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” in terms of the influence readers today would say it has had upon their ways of thinking about the natural world and relationship to it (and indeed, for some, Leopold’s book would outrank Thoreau’s on such a list).