The Nearsighted Naturalist - Softcover

Zwinger, Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816518815 ISBN 13: 9780816518814

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 1998

Synopsis

Seeking out wildflowers and whitewater, Ann Zwinger has called many places home. The Nearsighted Naturalist brings together work from more than two decades in her career as one of our most distinguished natural history writers. From the Indiana landscape of her youth to her Colorado mountain retreat, from Arizona's Aravaipa Canyon to New Zealand's Kapiti Island, Zwinger leads an ever-widening armchair tour of natural places both ordinary and astonishing. Whether anticipating the first day of spring or seeing the elegance of the subtle hues of a moth's papery wings, Zwinger's trademark eye for detail brings the landscape alive. Her travels trace her evolution from a home-centered wife and mother to a wandering adventurer, an evolution that has taught her to be at home in nature no matter where she is. Sprinkled with Zwinger's own charming pen-and-ink drawings, The Nearsighted Naturalist reminds us of the power of the very best nature writing. It is an invitation to wander, to travel to faraway places, to revisit your own backyard, to chase dragonflies, and to experience the healing power of a sea-smoothed pebble. With the author, readers will embark on a fascinating exploration into distant deserts of the mind and hillsides of the heart.

About this title

About the Author:

Ann Haymond Zwinger teaches nature writing at Colorado College.

From Kirkus Reviews:

paper 0-8165-1881-5 A slow-starting but ultimately intriguing collection of natural history essays written over two decades. Zwinger (who won a Western States Book Award for Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, 1995) attributes her ``nose-to-nose'' interaction with nature to nearsightedness, which leaves her dependent on a hand lens. This approach lends itself well to an exhaustive exploration of her home base near Colorado's Pikes Peak, where she lovingly records the land's changing science and aesthetics in the drift of seasons. The first essays detail small wonders, and though she makes a case for the importance of invertebrates (which comprise almost 99 percent of all living species, she points out), it's hard to share her excitement for the complex, tedious process for determining moth gender. The book takes off when Zwinger broadens her focus, exploring a coastal Chilean island that sheltered the real-life Robinson Crusoe, traveling to Baja to retrace the steps of 19th-century naturalist Xantu, one of the first to document the natural science of the newly opened west, and tagging along with researchers in the world's most densely populated raptor breeding ground, Idaho's Snake River Canyon. Whether thrusting a bare hand in a January stream to discover nymphs or shooting summer rapids on the San Juan River, she's an intrepid explorer whose enthusiasm for travel off the beaten path is inspiring. Zwinger is at her best interpreting the rigors of serious science for the casual naturalist. Explaining the immense pleasure she derives from the meticulousness and order of collecting insects, she documents the copious note-taking and fastidious preparation required, then nails the intangible appeal of it all with an apt analogy: ``I feel about insect collecting the way a trout fisherman feels about fly-fishing: it is the thereness that is important.'' Lyrical, astute, passionatean altogether charming look at the natural world. (illustrations by the author, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0816518815
• ISBN 13: 9780816518814
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 292