Book Description
The Photographs of Ansel Adams with the Writings of John Muir
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ansel Adams whose landmark early photographs of wild America, originally taken for the Works Progress Administration, fill the pages of this splendid volume. Adams' breathtaking images are accompanied by excerpts from the writings of Sierra Club founder John Muir, the renowned conservationist who devoted his life to celebrating and preserving the American wilderness.
Customer Reviews:
American Photography at its Best.......2007-06-15
Breathtaking photos. Especially in light of the rudimentary equipment available at the time they were taken. Proves that Ansel Adams is still unsurpassed in American photography. Captures the majesty and beauty of the vanishing American wilderness. Members of Congress should view this work before voting to open refuge or wild lands to drilling and logging.
Poor quality.......2007-05-03
Poor reproduction quality. Actually no quality. As educational book, to study composition or something like that, perhaps the book serves.
Not Worth Looking At.......2006-04-05
Poor reproduction quality. Actually no quality. Not approved by the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust.
Adams wouldn't have approved.......2005-07-18
While some photos are reasonable, most are seriously flawed. Some are flat, some are excessively contrasty, others seem murky and indistinct. Some of the photos need cleaning to remove dust spots, etc. Even the title is wrong , as the book includes photos of dams and sheep. There are many other excellent books, which have been prepared from Adams prints and produced with much more care. Buy one of those.
Are we looking at the same book?.......2005-01-02
Many of Ansel Adams' exquisite photographs call out for large reproductions, and this book displays them in a decent size format. But what a waste. The reproductions are nearly all flat and murky, with little detail in the shadow. If I had read far enough down into the customer reviews, I would have been warned; but the reviews at the top of the stack were quite favorable. Which leads me to wonder: Are we looking at the same book? I advise readers to purchase Adams books published by Little, Brown, and Company (aka "Bulfinch"). Even at smaller sizes their books display much more detail and clarity than does this disappointing edition.
Product Description
Shaded Relief Topo Maps (13, 8 1/2" x 11" maps) of the famous Sierra High Route that will take hikers from Mount Whitney to Yosemite, CA.¶ Well marked trails over USGS topo maps that were beautifully enhanced with shaded relief to better distiguish details.¶ Scale 1:630360. 1 inch on map equals 1 mile.¶ Whitney Portal, Symmes Creek, Onion Valley, Oak Creek, Taboose Creek, North and South Lakes, Vermilion, Bear Creek, Florence Lake, Pine Creek, Mono Pass, McGee Creek, Devils Postpile, Mammoth Lakes, Agnew Meadows, Silver Lake, Tuolomne Meadows, and finally the Yosemite Valley. GPS Compatible! - Complete UTM Grid.
Customer Reviews:
T.Harrison rules!.......2007-08-04
I've used the same set of Harrison's JMT maps a couple of times now, the first hike took 30 days and second took 18. They're durable, for sure. The scale (1:63,360) is appropriate for the set of 13 8.5"x11" maps - if you really, really hustle you can hike a map per day. The size means you don't have to unfold a huge sheet of paper each time you want to check where you are. The mileage between waypoints on the trail is clearly marked. The maps don't have the detail of 7.5-minute USGS maps but you wouldn't want that kind of detail for this hike. Harrison also has some larger maps, e.g., "Sequoia & King's Canyon Nat'l Parks" with a 1:125,000 scale but the size is inconvenient for the JMT hike. Conceivably you could scissor his larger maps to make a map of the trail but since he's already done the job about perfectly, why bother? (Incidentally the JMT runs between Mt. Whitney and Yosemite's Happy Isles, so being disappointed at not getting a Mexico-to-Canada map doesn't make very much sense.)
The BEST map for the John Muir Trail.......2007-07-05
I purchased this Tom Harrison map set to thru-hike the JMT. At the same time I ordered the maps from the national park service. The T.H. maps are thin, tearproof, waterproof, lightweight and they pack down into a small size. The NPS maps are paper, they tear easily, they'd be damaged easily by water, and because they cover the 3 parks/national forests, rather than just the trail, they are about 10 times as large and heavier. When I go hiking later this year, the T.H. maps are coming with me. The NPS maps are staying at home.
PCT Maps.......2007-05-31
They were fine, but we expected the whole trail from S.California to Canada. Really think it was my over look.
The standard...a must have on the JMT........2007-05-03
These set of maps are just what all of us would have created had we the time and technology. They are the perfect companion for the JMT hiker - far better than a standard paper map. Mark them, erase the marks, drop them in water, stuff them in you pack and they're still like new. An excellent product.
Book Description
In a lifetime of exploration, writing, and passionate political activism, John Muir made himself America's most eloquent spokesman for the mystery and majesty of the wilderness, a master of natural description who evoked and celebrated with unique power and intimacy the untrammeled landscapes of Alaska and the American West.
Customer Reviews:
A Look At the Life of an Amazing Man.......2007-05-07
This Autobiography of John Muir was a look at the life of an amazing man. He was the type of writer that could take you to the place where he was living and make you feel like you were right there with him. His childhood experiences in Scotland and the farm life of Wisconsin formed the basis for how he viewed and related to the rest of his life and those around him. He was a world traveler who looked through the eyes of creation to observe ecology and invention. As a world traveler I also observe through the eyes of creation and as a native Californian I have had extensive experience hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada's. John Muir's writing style took me back to the places I have loved and remembered.
The Finest Natural History.......2007-01-04
John Muir was one of the founders of the early 20th century conservation movement and godfather to today's environmentalism. This collection of three books and shorter works demonstrates the reason. Muir's description of the natural world is at times scientific, at others spiritual. Here nature is not some remote thing but the living manifestation of God's love. This is not a religious book as such and yet he finds that all parts of the natural creation from rocks and mountains to trees and animals have inherent within them a life force which makes them precious. Humans are neither removed from nor a "higher" part of nature. Muir shows that we are part of this larger whole - a radical concept when he proposed it and radical still. Muir set the standard in calling for preservation of the natural world. He was a genius as an inventor and scientist and, in addition, is one of our finest writers ever. These collected Nature Writings are simply beautiful and wonderfully presented in this Library of America edition.
John Muir: Outdoorsman, Conservationist, and Literate Genius.......2003-09-15
"American forests! the glory of the world!"
- John Muir, 1901
Of all the extraordinary men and women that have made our nation great, one stands above all others for his dedication to preserving its unequaled natural beauty: John Muir. Founder of The Sierra Club, this lover of the western forests' legacy to our generation is the National Park system, through which millions of acres of unique ecosystems have been set aside for everyone's enjoyment.
"Muir: Nature Writings" is a collection of the writings of this Scottish expatriate who first stepped foot in America in 1849 as an eleven year old brawler and budding naturalist. Blessed with a childhood mastery of Latin and Greek as well as a discerning and disciplined eye, the learned boy possessed a poet's heart, a scientist's mind, and a theologian's soul. A genius, who as a teen whittled precision wooden scientific instruments, Muir used his diverse skills to vividly portray nature's life and death struggles on his family's Wisconsin farm in "My Boyhood & Youth." Here we find Muir learning to swim by observing frogs or recollecting the mindless slaughter of the Earth's most numerous bird, the now-extinct passenger pigeon, a forlorn tale that foreshadows the conservationist he was to become.
While in college polishing his mechanical skills, Muir was detoured into studying botany. Dropping out to make powered tools for factories, an accident left him rethinking that detour; he forsook the factory and walked across America. His journey led him to the Sierra Mountains, chronicled in "My First Summer in the Sierra." Now working as a shepherd, Muir drove his flock through Yosemite while making detailed nature studies. Marveling at the natural beauty of the land he would eventually champion as one of the first National Parks, Muir wrote: "We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun, - a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal."
Muir's writings here run the gamut from analytical to thrilling. In "Stickeen", the author and a canine companion cheat death while stranded mid-storm between crevasses of an Alaskan glacier. (A self-taught authority on glaciers, Muir would eventually have one in Alaska bear his name.) "The Mountains of California" is an in-depth look at the geologic formations, plants, and animals of the region. In this piece, he tells of being stuck on the side of volcanic Mt. Shasta, staying warm in the bitter cold by nestling up to steam vents. Muir also laments the loss of the vast meadows of the San Joaquin Valley as he discusses how to make a living post-Gold Rush by raising bees for honey.
What makes Muir so unique when compared with today's environmentalists is this belief that we can live in harmony with Creation if we take simple steps to prevent despoiling it. In "The American Forests" he wrote: "No place is too good for good men, and there is still room.... Every place is made better by them. Let them be as free to pick gold and gems from the hills, to cut and hew, dig and plant, for homes and bread...." Muir's balanced view of Man's place in the wilderness overwhelmingly reflects his Christian faith, for he never fails to stand in awe of each living thing God has made. That our government leaders were so swayed by Muir's writing attests to the power of his "holy" persuasion. All of us are indebted to John Muir's single-minded devotion to America's wilderness.
("Muir: Nature Writings" is part of the Library of America series. This diverse collection of the writings of great Americans ranges from sermons of early American preachers to analysis of the Vietnam War. The works of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, Flannery O'Connor, and James Thurber are but a few that comprise the series. An invaluable lookingglass into the heart and soul of our nation, this collection is essential reading for anyone who longs to know what makes America unique.)
inspirational in every way.......1999-10-11
A great writer writing about great things - you'll feel like you're in the middle of the Sierra yourself. Endlessly enjoyable.
Lovers of Muir, find your home in this volume!.......1999-08-29
In a world brimming with wonderful volumes of the work of John Muir, here is the one edition in which you may find virtually everything you seek. To find it in such a handsome, handy, easy to negotiate book makes this a must for all lovers of Muir's writing. Eight inches tall by six wide and two inches thick, it is a durable and willing partner for excursions through the wilderness. Created for long life among library shelves and scholarly studies, this sleek little friend stows away quite comfortably in backpack or oversized coat pocket. Those who don't know Mr. Muir will meet the great lover of wildness (and perhaps history's most influential advocate of preservation) presented in a lovingly researched volume which includes informative notes on the evolution of Muir's field journal entries into published pieces, a chronology of his life and literary career, and all of the major writings for which he is known. A generous selection of his published essays and magazine articles reveal many previously unsuspected jewels of poetic prose. As a lifetime devotee of the works of Shakespeare, the Bible, and the immortal Scottish bard Robert Burns, Muir could recite extensive passages from all. Likewise, his writing breezes through the imagery and lessons drawn from these potent sources. Coffee table books brimming with Ansel Adams photography, biographies of Muir, and collections of his correspondence are all aspects of any comprehensive Muir collection. The words themselves, however, simple and elegantly bound, are where the journey might well begin.
Average customer rating:
- A reluctant write
- Nature is the only gardener able to do work so fine
- If this is classic nature lit, then maybe its just me...
- This Is John Muir's Finest Book
- Discovering the Range of Light
|
My First Summer in the Sierra (Dover Books on Americana)
John Muir
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Mountains
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Muir, John
| ( M )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Nature Writing
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Nevada
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Americas
| History
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
| Arizona
| California
| General
| Mid-Atlantic
| Midwest
| New England
| New Mexico
| New York
| Northeast
| Pacific Northwest
| Pennsylvania
| South
| Southeast
| Texas
| West
( M )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
| Melville, Herman
| Moliere
Nature Writing
| Outdoors & Nature
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
All 4-for-3 Deals
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The Yosemite
-
The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures
-
Major Problems in California History
-
A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
-
The Mountains of California
ASIN: 0486437353 |
Amazon.com
John Muir, a young Scottish immigrant, had not yet become the famed conservationist whom he liked to call "John o' the Mountains" when he first trekked into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada not long after the end of the Civil War. Having caught a glimpse of such magical places as Tuolumne Meadows and El Capitan, Muir ached to return, and in the summer of 1869 he signed on with a crew of shepherds and drove a flock of 2,500 woolly critters toward the headwaters of the Merced River.
The diary he kept while tending sheep forms the heart of My First Summer in the Sierra; published in 1911, it enticed thousands of Americans to visit the Yosemite country. The book is full of the concerns Muir would later voice as America's foremost preservationist and wildlands advocate, which would bear fruit in the creation of several national parks and monuments. And it resounds with Muir's nearly pantheistic regard for the natural world: with celebrations of the Sierra's lizards that "dart about on the hot rocks, swift as dragonflies," its mountain lions and tall trees and fierce thunderstorms and bears; with Muir's overarching awe for places that civilization had yet to tame. Though perhaps a little purple by modern standards, Muir's book continues to inspire readers to seek out such places for themselves and make them their own--and as such it stands among the enduring classics of environmental literature. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Picturesque descriptions and sketches by one of America's most important and influential naturalists describes the author's 1869 stay in California's Yosemite River Valley and the Sierra Mountains. Muir's engaging journal describes majestic vistas, flora and fauna, as well as the region's other breathtaking natural wonders. 21 black-and-white illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
A reluctant write.......2007-05-09
This is an excellent, honest write. Muir reluctantly dictated this book while walking around a northern California estate. The wealthy owner of the estate loaned his secretary while Muir walked and talked and the secretary took dictation. Muir had the benefit of good editors. It is a great read because Muir is walking through forests while he recounts his first summer in the Sierra Nevada. We feel it through his eyes.
Muir's later writing efforts came hard, with much editing and rewrites. He worked in his "scribble den" in Martinez with "lateral, terminal and medial moraines of paper arranged about the room ready to cascade forth and bury him."
The original manuscripts show much of the book was written in pencil, with at least five editings (Muir made corrections and alterations). Graham cracker crumbs are embedded in the paper (Muir ate while he worked. Eating graham crackers is a carry over from his student days at the University of Wisconsin).
This is the genuine John Muir, fresh, crisp, articulate (okay, his descriptions can be a bit wordy at times) and alive with a child-like fascintation for learning and inspiration.
I own an original first edition copy with the dust cover and gold leaf on the hard bound cover. I reread the book from time to time. What a great story.
Nature is the only gardener able to do work so fine.......2007-04-17
Gretel Ehrlich provides the introduction. It is noted that John Muir walked first, wrote later. In 1868 he was thirty years old and had walked a thousand miles. He was a seeker in self-exile such as D.H. Lawrence, Rockwell Kent, and Basho. Muir chronicles a rite of passage. The summer described began in June, 1869. Forty-one years later the account was pieced together.
Muir worked for Mr. Delaney as a sheepherder. He had a St. Bernard dog as a companion. Mr. Delaney encouraged Muir to sketch and pursue his naturalist studies. He was to learn that sheep cannot be governed when hungry. Bushes are stripped. The sheep resemble locusts in their destructive potential.
Two kinds of squirrels are evident, the Douglas and the California Gray. The wood rat is more like a squirrel than a rat. He bulds large striking looking houses. Sheep camp bread is baked in Dutch ovens. Descriptions of silver firs, Sierra juniper, yellow and sugar pines, Douglas spruce, sequoia, hemlock, and dwarf pines appear in the account of the summer. Nature is extravagant. The group follows the Yosemite trail.
Mules flee from bears, and dogs want to. Bears are very shy. Indian patience is required to see them. Making sheep cross a stream is a challenge. Once one goes in, the others push in pell-mell. Lake Tenaya was named for one of the chiefs of the Yosemite tribe. Sierra mosquitoes are nearly an inch long. Sierra chipmunks are arboreal and squirrel-like. Grouse and woodpeckers are abundant in the vicinity of Mount Hoffman.
On August third Muir found Professor Butler, his teacher at the University of Wisconsin, because, sensing his presence, John Muir made inquiries at the only hotel in the area and was directed to go to the Vernal Falls. Professor Butler and his party were astonished that John Muir found them.
In times of hunger the dogs, men, and sheep are confronted with lions, leopards, wolves, hyenas, and panthers. The names of places are exciting and descriptive--Moraine Lake, Mono Desert, Soda Springs, Unicorn Peak, Cathedral Range, Tuolumne, Hetch-Hetchy Valley. Muir's self-directed studies in botany clearly account for some of the strengths of this nature narrative. In the end Mr. Delaney tells Muir he will be famous some day.The author describes himself as an incredible wilderness lover. September twenty second ended Muir's first excursion.
The book is a marvel. Sketches and photographs are included and enhance the work.
If this is classic nature lit, then maybe its just me..........2007-01-09
I am going to resign from critiquing this book on a literary scale, and just say that I didn't enjoy this book for the same reason a couple others mentioned - its boring and repetitive. Maybe its because I'm not used to aimless - albeit eloquent -landscape descriptions, or maybe it's the fact that NOTHING happens for 264 pages, but reading this book felt more like a chore than an enjoyable reading experience. Case in point: Casual readers beware!
This Is John Muir's Finest Book.......2006-09-07
John Muir might be the finest author of the "naturalist" genre there ever was. This book is based on his field notes he wrote while he spent his first summer in the Sierra Nevada as a shepherd. He always seems to find the perfect words to describe all that he sees. He was the consumate observer of the natural world and this book is all that. It is a must read for anyone who ever wondered what his life was like, how the Sierra Nevada appeared in the late 1800s, and how he became America's savior of public lands.
Discovering the Range of Light.......2006-07-18
John Muir was born in 1838 and at a young age emigrated from Scotland with his family to a Wisconsin farm. He escaped the hard labor of the farm and his father's backward Biblical obsessions by displaying great powers of visualization. From principles learned from books, he whittled and fashioned barometers, thermometers, clocks and other marvels from the barest of materials. But he repudiated his inventive genius, which could have made him rich, after an industrial accident left him temporarily blinded; and he took off for the wilderness to discover plants and the natural world.
This book is a journal account of Muir's finding a place for himself in Yosemite after some dangerous wandering through the hazards of reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. It's a book of discovery. Although flocks of sheep like Muir's employer's were allowed to overrun backcountry meadows, and gold miners had ripped apart the lower river beds, the Sierras then were still a place that had many aspects that had not yet been explored or understood. The backcountry was much more vulnerable to exploitation (though in many ways less endangered) than today, but there was freer and unfettered access for one who sought out it's mysteries and wanted to learn. This book shows Muir's powers of visualization in his beginning to formulate the role that glaciers play in the formation of the landscape. No one at that time had come to a solid understanding of what had made Yosemite Valley. And, although it might seem quite clear in retrospect, it took a strong mind of one who up until that time had been adrift in the world, a wanderer who studied plants, to visualize his theories and make them known to the world.
Anyone who has not experienced the Sierra first hand cannot really appreciate this book. There are lengthy and numerous descriptions of plants and animals, loving descriptions in Muir's fashion, that can only be understood by one who has reveled in the same places and likewise wants to examine all the details. It's not a purely intellectual appreciation. It's something felt with the whole body, with all the senses alive. Muir always writes of being drawn into Nature, of never turning back, as in the case of his foolhardy venture to the brink of Yosemite Falls, "I therefore concluded not to venture farther, but did nevertheless". There's also this kind of breathless anticipation of tomorrow- if only I will be given a chance to explore its fountains...
Book Description
In a series of richly painted landscapes, Thomas Locker brings the world and words of John Muir to readers, both the young and the young at heart. Equally at home in the wildernesses of California and Alaska, Muir wrote charming lyrical descriptions of nature for the benefit of future generations.
Muir recognized that wilderness should not only be appreciated but should be fought for as well. He sparked the preservationist movement in the United States and throughout the world, working with President Theodore Roosevelt to establish national parks and spearheading the founding of the Sierra Club, an organization that to this day carries on the work he began long ago of encouraging citizen action to protect the natural world.
This book is the second in a series of illustrated books by Thomas Locker introducing readers to notable people who loved and wrote about the American land, and especially about the value of wilderness.
Customer Reviews:
A true work of art.......2003-08-11
John Muir: America's Naturalist is a picture book created and illustrated by Thomas Locker for the express purpose of biographically informing young readers naturalist John Muir's wisdom and values with respect to wilderness preservation. Beautiful full-color reproductions of Locker's richly painted landscapes perfectly complement the life and achievements of John Muir who wrote articulate and enlightening descriptions of nature for the benefit of future generations. John Muir: America's Naturalist is a true work of art, and would make an impressive, popular, memorable contribution to school and community library collections.
Average customer rating:
- A perilous journey to discover the natural world
- Natures bounty in a war-torn land
- John Muir is really underrated as a writer
- Interesting Journey
- Great Read!!
|
A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
John Muir
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Cuba
| Caribbean & West Indies
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Travel
| Writing
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Wildlife
| Animals
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Natural History
| Nature & Ecology
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Environment
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
| Conservation
| Desertification
| Ecology
| Environmental Science
| Natural Disasters
| Recycling
| Water Supply
| Weather
Nature Writing
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
Essays & Travelogues
| Reference & Tips
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
East South Central
| South
| Regions
| United States
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Cuba
| Caribbean
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
North America
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
Muir, John
| ( M )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Outdoors & Nature Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Reference Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Travel Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Along the Edge of America
-
Looking for Alaska
-
The Walk West: A Walk Across America 2 (Walk West)
-
A Walk Across America
-
The Mountains of California
ASIN: 0395901472 |
Book Description
Here is the adventure that started John Muir on a lifetime of discovery. Taken from his earliest journals, this book records Muir's walk in 1867 from Indiana across Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to the Gulf Coast. In his distinct and wonderful style, Muir shows us the wilderness, as well as the towns and people, of the South immediately after the Civil War.
Customer Reviews:
A perilous journey to discover the natural world.......2007-06-03
After an accident in a carriage factory while working as an inventor left him temporarily blinded, John Muir vowed that he would break the moorings of life in Indianapolis and embark for wilderness places to study plants. His intention, which he later acknowledged as foolhardy, was to find his way to a tributary of the Amazon and float down that great river. He never made it to South America. He was lucky enough to survive a bout with malaria and be diverted to California.
It's hard to imagine a much more dangerous undertaking than to set off alone soon after the Civli War to places unknown in the heart of the South. He was warned repeatedly by kind strangers and knew quite clearly of the dangers ahead: the guerilla bands of roving white bandits, displaced and desperate former slaves, a migration of rattlesnakes, the alligator-infested swamps, and the worst of all: catching malaria from mosquito bites (the thing that did catch up to him). It shows how single minded he was in his desire to study and learn about the natural world. As the blacksmith who took him in along the way characterized him: what a tough-minded man he needed to be in order to subordinate the dangers to what he wanted to do.
Some do get rather tired of reading Muir's descriptive passages, but for anyone with a love of plants, this book offers a very unique and special view of the native vegetation along the route that he took to Florida. The cultural observations are less common, but they are keen and say a lot about the times: the people and how simply they lived. Then, there are some amazing experiences such as the time he spent in the natural refuge of the St Bonaventure graveyard in Savannah waiting for a parcel from his brother to arrive. There's a prophecy by a friend along the way about the coming prevalence of electricity long before the light bulb was invented. And, there are Muir's observations that plants do have secret lives, unknown to man, who tends to blow himself up out of all proportion to the rest of Creation.
Natures bounty in a war-torn land.......2007-05-22
John Muir (naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club) left his home in Indiana at age 29 and "rambled" 1,000 miles through the woods of the southern US ending in Florida in 1867/68. It was just 2 years after the end of the Civil War and he ran into "wild negros" and long-haired horse-riding ex-Confederate bandits who would "kill a man for $5". He passed through uninhabited stretches of burnt out fields and deserted farms and was often seen as a northern interluder mistrusted by his southern guests. He lived mostly on stale pieces of bread, almost dieing of starvation while camping in a graveyard outside of Savannah, GA. He caught malaria and was bed ridden for 3 months, cared for by a kind family in Florida.
This is a snapshot of the south right after the war and the contrast between Muir's beautiful nature writing and the devastation of war are just as striking today as they must have been for the many people who encountered this unusual walker in the woods. Muir's writing is under-stated - the book was published posthumously and is more a diary than a finished book, which gives it a truthfulness and matter of factness. Fundamentally a Romanticist world-view - the power of nature and mans relation to it - Muir delights in finding, sampling and discussing plants, animals and geography. The genre is best compared with Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes and Thoreau's The Maine Woods.
John Muir is really underrated as a writer.......2007-02-07
The title sums up quite a bit of the review for me. Not only was he a brilliant naturalist and visionary, but he was a better than decent science and adventure writer. This book, thousand mile walk to the gulf, is from Muir's younger days when he basically dropped out and went exploring. He walked from Wisconsin to the gulf, shortly after the war, and literally slept wherever. Hedges, roadsides, the occasional house. His observations on reconstruction South are all the more insightful because they are unadulterated (is that a word?) by any agenda, and have the overpowering reality of truth.
While his time in the Sierras is what he is most famous for, and the mountains more rugged and inspiring, this pre-Jenkins "Walk Across America" is a tamer warm-up for reading his journals from Yosemite days. I highly recommend it myself, it gives a bit of botany and a lot of background on Muir himself.
Interesting Journey.......2006-12-14
One of John Muir's earliest works, this book traces his travels from Indiana to Florida, continuing on to Cuba, and ending up in California. At times, it is fascinating stuff. As he left in 1867, just after the American Civil War, he encounters many suspicious Southerners, although most are cordial to him. Muir wrote this as a journal of discovery, I think, to document the different flora and fauna he encounters in a part of the country with which he was not familiar. But this book is just as interesting as a social study - in other words, what was life like in America in 1867? How did the people act? How did they treat him? What were his impressions? If you have ever wondered about what America was like 150 years ago, you will find some answers here.
Additionally, Muir has some fine moments of nature writing. Sometimes he delights in just stopping and observing: "I used to lie on my back for whole days beneath the ample arms of these great trees, listening to the winds..." He calls the birds he observes "feathered people from the woods and reedy isles." And despite being a God-fearing man, he disagrees with those who take a fundamentalist view of nature, ridiculing the claim that the world was made especially for man..."a presumption not supported by the facts," says Muir.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. At times there is a little too much discussion on botany for my tastes, but that was OK. Muir's journal is rich with interesting anecdotes. With this journey, the founder of the Sierra Club was well on his way to making his mark in the world.
Four stars.
Great Read!!.......2005-06-16
I thought this was a great insight into a time in our country when many things were undiscovered. Living in the south myself, it was great to hear about Bonaventure and descriptions of the people John Muir came across in his travels. If you want a sense of what nature and the southern way of life used to be like, this is the book for you.
Customer Reviews:
New definitive JMT book.......2007-09-20
The previous version of this book was, I believe, considered to be the definitive JMT book, and this new version must be also. In it are all the details anyone attempting or thinking of attempting the John Muir Trail will need to know; what clothes to take, which food is appropriate, permits needed, bear information, a guide to the flowers of the area, history of the trail, geology, directions and even maps and a list of possible campsites. In fact, details are the thing about this book - it's ram-jam with them, and I couldn't think of any detail that I'd like to know that wasn't covered (I've hiked the trail once)!
This is a guidebook for those intending to hike the trail, not an account of someone's experiences, but even so it must get even the most couchy potato interested in getting out and walking! I did find the referencing of the sections and maps a little confusing, but it's a small point. And it might be a little large too, so I'd probably elect to photocopy parts of it, or rip out sections to take on the trail.
Great for Prep Work, but a bit Bulky for the Hike.......2007-08-05
Wilderness Press continues to update some of their classic guides regularly and this new version of their John Muir Trail Guide is well written with a new author, Elizabeth Wenk. At its heart, the guide is similar to previous editions in giving a mile for mile description of the trail. I found it very accurate for all portions of the JMT that I have hiked. It also includes new features: numerous GPS coordinates for landmarks, updated regulations, appendices listing campsites, mileages, and resupply points, and new topographical maps from Tom Harrison.
All these new features come at a small cost, however, in that the book is more than twice as large as the previous edition, by Kathy Morey and Thomas Winnett. And while you will need these new features in planning your hike, they are less important on the actual trail. Backpackers trying to save space and weight have a couple of options. One is to simply tear out the sections of the book you will be using. You hardly need the classic South to North directions if you are hiking the other way. Another is to use this edition for planning, but to get one of the older editions for the actual trip. These can be found here (1998) or here (1986). But this book is still worth purchasing. Having it will improve your odds of completing the trail and dramatically increase your enjoyment of it as well.
This is it!.......2007-08-04
This is the new edition of the Morey/Winnett (sp?) book but it's much, much more than that. I've hiked the JMT a couple of times and done a fair amount of hiking in the Sierras. Basically tho I'm a city boy and can't tell one tree from another and know nothing about geology. This book will - I haven't had the chance to hike with it yet - fill in the ignorance and satisfy the curiosity about what I'm hiking past. The author knows her stuff. But, wait, there's a whole lot more. Aside from a large number of GPS coords, more than I've found anywhere on the Web, there's all kinds of info you need to orchestrate your hike - names, addresses, prices, policies, regulations, campsites, side-trip peak-bagging, Harrison maps, informed suggestions - it's all here. One more item - it's only occasionally you read a book that makes you feel the author really worked hard to make it "complete", didn't cut corners, "pushed" when the going got hard - this is one such book. If you're thinking of hiking the JMT or any part of it, buy the book. If you're not thinking of doing the hike, buy the book and discover what you're missing.
Book Description
Quoting from John Muir's diaries, Kathryn Lasky tells the inspiring tale of one of America's most dedicated environmentalists, aided by Stan Fellows's evocative, dramatic acrylic paintings.
From the meadows of Scotland to the farms of Wisconsin, from the swamps of Florida to the Alaskan tundra, John Muir loved the land. Born in 1838, he was a writer, a scholar, an inventor, a shepherd, a farmer, and an explorer, but above all, he was a naturalist. John Muir was particularly devoted to the high cliffs, waterfalls, and ancient giant sequoia trees that, through his careful influence, were set aside as the first national park in America - Yosemite. Here is the life story of the man who, moved by a commitment to wilderness everywhere, founded the Sierra Club in 1892, a conservation group that carries on his crucial work to this day.
Customer Reviews:
Students in grades 3-5 are provided with a review of his childhood dreams and early love of nature.......2006-06-13
It's a pleasure to see Kathryn Lasky's biography, John Muir: America's First Environmentalist appear for a younger audience than biographies of Muir usually writes for: Stan Fellows provides gorgeous watercolors to accompany a book which uses John Muir's own diaries as a foundation for an exploration of his life and thoughts. Students in grades 3-5 are provided with a review of his childhood dreams and early love of nature, and will find the picturebook format most accessible.
Book Description
In his stirring biography, Frederick Turner, the distinguished writer and cultural historian, captures the legendary scale of the life of an American icon. Immigrant, inventor, botanist, and founder of the conservation movement, John Muir (1838-1914) truly led those of his time-and now ours-to rediscover the natural beauty of this land. From his harsh childhood in Scotland and on a Wisconsin pioneer farm, to his rugged, solitary explorations all over America and especially in the Sierras, to his passionate battle, in person and in his writings, to save and celebrate our wilderness, Muir was a heroic figure. Turner's biography is every bit as monumental and inspiring as its subject.
Customer Reviews:
John Muir Knew Nature, But Not The Nature Of Himself.......2006-12-17
This book, like most biographies, is shallow. Turner paints a stilted, idealized portrait of John Muir that at best can only satisfy readers who aren't that hungry to look into the depths of themselves.
Turner wrongly portrays Muir as a grand philosopher. Although in his youth Muir was a passionate seeker spurred forward by his deep dissatisfaction, he never remotely succeeded on the quest to know his own inner perfection. Thus his philosophy is limited. The closest he came to finding perfection was in the beauty of Nature, and while he was quite right about the perfection he found there - and of our need to conserve it! - it only represented the true beauty that lay buried and smothered in his depths. Muir never figured out that his love for Nature was but a metaphor for the love he couldn't feel for himself.
Muir spent his early manhood trying to heal the inner wounds of the horrendous aspects of his childhood. He grew up with a monster for a father and with a mother who offered little protection, much as Turner portrayed her as an ideal parent. Unable from the beginning to find his true peace through inner connection, Muir became a master at finding temporary peace in external dissociation - first with his inventions and then with his disappearances into the wilderness.
Muir wrote, "I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness. My own special self is nothing." He truly meant this. He put little or no value on his own true self - just as his abusive, neglectful childhood taught him. Had he found his true connection within he would never have been so repeatedly suicidal with his life, as exhibited by his countless dangerous and largely purposeless acts which nearly killed him several times. Although he defended his insane behavior as educational, this was clearly rationalization. In reality he was acting out - and his searches were poisoned with compulsive, unconscious motivations.
Muir's immaturity and lack of spiritual development is further evidence by the fact that after he'd done most of his intense ramblings and journeying he simply married into a new family - his wife's - and disappeared into their conventional family system. He gave up his quest for truth and settled instead for becoming a wealthy farmer, an enmeshed family man, a semi-present father, and an ardent conservationist.
This shines the light on the main error of Muir's life, in spite of all the good he might have done with his conservation: he never realized that he himself and all we humans are a part of Nature. We are Human Nature. We may be destroying our world around us, but the deepest answer lies within our hearts, not in the woods.
Excellent Biography and Environmental Treatise.......2001-09-20
I've often been fascinated by John Muir, ever since I started visiting many different national parks out west and seeing his name cited everywhere as an inspiration. If you are interested in environmental ethics and theory (as opposed to simplistic tree-hugging and other poorly-considered theories), and if you have a primal love for the outdoors, then John Muir is your man. Here Frederick Turner has written a solid biography of the man, with all the research and articulation that should be expected. Turner also includes a large dose of Muir's opinions and theories, as well as the historical and political background behind Muir's actions and thought processes. Therefore, what we have here is not just an informative biography on the public person, but an enlightening treatise on environmental ethics and theory, as defined by the brilliant mind of Muir himself.
Mind-opening and fascinating.......2001-03-06
I finished this book about a week ago. Despite moving on to subsequent reading material, I find that there are parts of Turner's book that I simply can't stop thinking on. For me, they are what makes John Muir's life and legacy so important.
There is about a three or four page segment at the end of the chapter entitled "Civilization and Its Discontents," in which Turner presents what appears to be a sea change in America's conception of itself. The change is fundamental in that it consists of a shift from the intellectual and human promise of America as seen through the eyes of Emerson and Thoreau, to the promise of power, wealth, and machines. That is, at one point, people, and their potential for growth and good, were at the center of the American dream. Yet, at some point in the Nineteenth century (possibly at the time of the Civil War) money and wealth became the American dream.
Turner is the not the first person to present this argument, as he himself notes. Nor am I certain that his take on this cultural shift is entirely accurate. However, I do think it points out the value that Muir had, and his intellectual descendants have, in directing the national attention back in the direction from which it came--not so much that we should live for nature, but that we should live for people.
As for the rest of the book, I found it enjoyable if not without problems. Turner's presentation of Muir's life, including the emotions and conceptualizations that he imagines for him, is thoroughly engaging and seems quite complete. The only problems I encountered are that Turner seems to run out of steam at the end, seeming to skip years of Muir's life at a time, and that Turner has an interesting use of commas in that he doesn't use them very often.
If you read this, and I think you should, you'll probably be as interested in reading Muir's own writings as I am.
Insightful and beautifully written.......2001-02-19
I enjoyed this book very much. Until now I've only read short articles about Muir, so I am not qualified to comment on Turner's accuracy or how comprehensive his book is. But I can tell you it is beautifully written, evoking the world that Muir inhabited... or better yet, the worlds. Because Turner follows the boy John Muir from Scotland to Wisconsin, and then takes us along on all the adult John Muir's extensive travels. We learn about this majestic life that's as full of crags and crannies as the mountains he so loved. And we are left with no doubt about his genius and his incalculable importance to the America we live in today.
Book Description
"Ã a rich and fitting tribute." -PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"With previously unpublished journal entries and letters, this volume captures the original mountain man's final trek." -OUTSIDE
"I am now writing up some notes, but when they will be ready for publication I do not know... It will be a long time before anything is arranged in book form." These words of John Muir, written in June 1912 to a friend, proved prophetic. The journals and notes to which the great naturalist and environmental figure was referring have languished, unpublished and virtually untouched, for nearly a century. Until now. Here edited and published for the first time, John Muir's travel journals from 1911-12, along with his associated correspondence, finally allow us to read in his own words the remarkable story of John Muir's last great journey.
Leaving from Brooklyn, New York, in August 1911, John Muir, at the age of seventy-three and traveling alone, embarked on an eight-month, 40,000-mile voyage to South America and Africa. The 1911-12 journals and correspondence reproduced in this volume allow us to travel with him up the great Amazon, into the jungles of southern Brazil, to snowline in the Andes, through southern and central Africa to the headwaters of the Nile, and across six oceans and seas in order to reach the rare forests he had so long wished to study. Although this epic journey has received almost no attention from the many commentators on Muir's work, Muir himself considered it among the most important of his life and the fulfillment of a decades-long dream.
John Muir's Last Journey provides a rare glimpse of a Muir whose interests as a naturalist, traveler, and conservationist extended well beyond the mountains of California. It also helps us to see John Muir as a different kind of hero, one whose endurance and intellectual curiosity carried him into far fields of adventure even as he aged, and as a private person and family man with genuine affections, ambitions, and fears, not just an iconic representative of American wilderness.
With an introduction that sets Muir's trip in the context of his life and work, along with chapter introductions and a wealth of explanatory notes, the book adds important dimensions to our appreciation of one of America's greatest environmentalists. John Muir's Last Journey will be must reading for students and scholars of environmental history, American literature, natural history, and related fields, as well as for naturalists and armchair travelers everywhere.
Customer Reviews:
Good.....but.......2006-11-03
Muir's journals were good but I didn't care for the introduction to the journals in each chapter by the author. The intro's went into way to much background detail. I would have been fine with less intro.
Books:
- Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico
- Animal Architects: Building and the Evolution of Intelligence
- Arctic and Antarctic: A Modern Geographical Synthesis
- Basics of Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Technology
- Battling the Inland Sea: American Political Culture, Public Policy, and the Sacramento Valley, 1850-1986
- Beaches
- Beasts in My Belfry (Large Print)
- Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay
- Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge
- Biological Sequence Analysis: Probabilistic Models of Proteins and Nucleic Acids
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Factory Physics Second Edition
- Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Technology
- Voices from the Rear
- Whatever It Takes: How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don't Learn
- Tonal Harmony Wkbk with Wkbk Audio CD and Finale CD-ROM
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- A Field Guide to Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs
- Introduction to Microelectronic Systems: The PIC 16F84 Microcontroller
- Virginia Automobile Liability Insurance/Including Uninsured Motorist/Underinsured Motorist/Medical P
- Global Marketing for the Digital Age: Globalize Your Business with Digital and Online Technology
Ansel Adams: The National Park Service Photographs
Ansel Adams: Classic Images
Yosemite and the High Sierra
Ansel Adams: Trees
Yosemite
