The Secret Forest (A University of Arizona Southwest Center Book) - Softcover

Bowden, Charles; Dykinga, Jack W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826314031 ISBN 13: 9780826314031

Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr, 1993

Synopsis

Describes the nature of Mexico's dry tropical forest, particularly the endangered remnant surrounding Alamos, Sonora, and discusses how humankind and the forest have molded and accommodated one another over the centuries

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Tales of the brute geography of tropical Sonora, told with originality by a writer known for prose with an offbeat edge. Bowden (Desierto, 1991, etc.) light-foots his way through the wonders of the dry tropical forest around Alamo, Mexico--a forest system that stretches from New Mexico to the Andes, but only in fragments: It's a patchwork of remnants, another on the long list of threatened environments. Although Bowden serves up healthy doses of botany and biology, this couldn't be farther from a technical study: He takes much greater pleasure in describing the obscure corners of the region, the chance encounters and strange conversations he happens upon. In prose that is by turns dreamy, then hard, even crystalline, he draws a portrait of this ``wonderful collision of desert, and tropics and sierra,'' a forest yielding the raw stuff for the spiritual as well as everyday needs of its inhabitants. Bowden's talent for drawing minimalist still lives from his experiences, combined with ancient and contemporary commentaries on the region, provides a compelling sense of place- -vivid, idiosyncratic, transporting. Freethinkers seem to make the best travel writers, and Bowden is snug in that company, with more than a hint of the anarchist about him, a man not averse to the occasional conversation with a rock or tree. The way he sees it, nature is ``a world that consumes all living things and means all living things.'' A vibrant sketch imbued with elegance, mystery, and charm. (Sixty color photographs by Pulitzer-winning photographer Jack Dykinga) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

The title refers to a little-known stretch of Mexican forest beginning 400 miles south of Arizona and terminating in the tropics of Central America. Bowden, a naturalist at the University of Arizona and author of Desierto ( LJ 6/15/91) and, with photographer Dykinga, The Sonoran Desert ( LJ 10/15/92), has written a long, rather anecdotal account of his many trips to this habitat, which is comparatively dry yet harbors distinctive, diversified flora and fauna. The subjective text dwells primarily on the author's reactions to the lives of the native population, the forest itself, and the inevitable encroachment of 20th-century agricultural and industrial disturbances. The author quotes paragraphs from accounts of other travelers to the region, including four Spanish survivors of a 16th-century expedition. Photographs, a map of the area, a list of plant species, and a calendar of native fiestas accompany the text. Recommended as an addition to collections on Mexico or world habitats but probably of lesser interest to libraries outside the southwest United States.
- Eleanor Maass, Maass Assocs., New Milford, Pa.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0826314031
• ISBN 13: 9780826314031
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 141