From the poetry of bogs and the sex life of ferns to poaching bonobos and studying bats, our summer reading round-up of books with environmental themes offers something for everyone.
A
Road Through Mali-Kuli.
Agi Kiss. 2001. 1stBooks Library,
www.1stbooks.com. 411 pp., paper. $26.95.
Poaching and traffic in wildlife, illegal logging, undercover operations, and mistaken identities are the stuff of this conservation-themed thriller set in a fictional West African nation. Author Agi Kiss is an ecologist with the World Bank, where she manages environmental projects in Africa. In A Road Through Mali-Kuli, her first novel, Kiss' first-hand knowledge of the challenges of conservation in Africa are abundantly evident: She knows what she's talking about, capturing the motley assortment of people and egos who play in this arena, as well as the real politik of the conflict between conservation, development, and corruption. This is also a great read, with an intriguing mystery, colorful characters you care about, and deft descriptions of African life that are never didactic. The ending leaves open the possibility of a series featuring the story's sympathetic heroine, a peripatetic NGO professional trying to find time for a life outside of work.
Field
Guide.
Gwendolen Gross. 2001. Harcourt, Inc.,
San Diego. 279 pp., paper. $14.
American graduate student Annabel Mendelssohn journeys to Australia to learn field biology, study spectacled fruit bats-and escape the sorrow she can't shake over her brother's death. Engrossed in her work and fascinated by her bats, Annabel gamely deals with blood-sucking leeches, lousy food, and the loneliness of her field camp. But when anti-environmentalist vandals burn the bats' roosts and her beloved professor disappears, Annabel abandons her research to look for him, hoping to assuage her grief over her brother. While more a story about love and loss than about the study of animal behavior, Field Guide nonetheless beautifully captures diverse Australian habitats and accurately depicts their plants and animals. In fact, it could be billed as a field guide for fiction-lovers. On another level, Field Guide could be read as a parable of many people's sadness at the loss of so much of the natural world and their attempts to stop mourning and try to save what remains.
Oaxaca
Journal.
Oliver Sacks. 2002. National Geographic
Society, Washington, D.C. 159 pp., cloth. $20.
The Tule tree, a huge bald cypress in the churchyard of Santa Maria del Tule on the outskirts of Oaxaca city near the Pacific Ocean in southern Mexico, was ancient when Alexandar van Humboldt admired it in 1803. Oliver Sacks had wanted to see El Gigante, as it is known, ever since he was intrigued 50 years ago by a photograph in his botany text. He finally had his opportunity on a ten-day botanical tour led by the American Fern Society to the state of Oaxaca. Elevations in Oaxaca range from sea level to 10,000 feet, with exposures to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The wide range of geological substrates and landforms with diverse microclimates supports more than 700 fern species. This was a short trip through Oaxaca, but for Sacks, it is as diverse, rich, historical, personal, and appealing as the lush tropical and cultural landscape he is immersed in. Sacks is joyfully enthusiastic about his traveling companions, the people he meets along the way, his boyhood memories, chemistry, ferns and fern sex, flowers, birds, beautiful old churches, chocolate, cigars, chilies, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, mescal, and just about everything that he encounters. With Sacks as our guide, Oaxaca springs to life as a rich and wondrous place even in the face of deep political and economic challenges.
Stirring
the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination.
Barbara Hurd. 2001. Beacon
Press, Boston. 145 pp., cloth. $23.
In Stirring the Mud, Maryland poet and writer Barbara Hurd finds in swamps and bogs a metaphor for the human condition as she celebrates the earthy allure of the mysterious places where the line between land and water blurs. Best called a meditation on human and wild nature, the appeal of Stirring the Mud lies in Hurd's lushly sensual descriptions of bogs and swamps, description based on an intimate and scientifically sound knowledge of these wetland habitats. Whether she is writing about bears or bog people, her poetry sings with insight and empathy. My favorite, about the shell of a snapping turtle: "Imagine the skin on your back growing thick, fusing so completely into a crusty sweatshirt, a stiff winter jacket, that finally you cannot separate where your own body begins and this tough armor begins. There's no soaking in the tub, no scrubbing the skin into softness, no letup, no relaxing, no chancing the enemy for the feel of the sun or a lover's hand on the small of your back. You are defined by your defense." Not beach reading, but rather, perfect for slowly savoring with a glass of wine at the end of a sultry day.
Darwin's
Radio.
Greg Bear. 1999. Del Rey Books, New
York. 538 pp., paper. $6.99.
-Susan Lumpkin, except Oaxaca Journal by John Seidensticker and Darwin's Radio by Brendan Horton.
