Anne W. Rowthorn

This is an LT Early Reviewer selection from almost a year and half ago. Better late than never?

Anyway, [the Wisdom of John Muir] is a collection of 100 or so selections/excerpts of John Muir's writings on nature and the environment. More or less in chronological order and with some introductory biographical notes by Rowthorn they kind of form a generalized outline of Muir's life and his contributions to nature preservation within this country.

The thing I learned about Muir is that while is prose about nature is beautifully poetic, I find it tedious and unhelpful when trying picture the scene in my mind. I mean Muir can paint word pictures like no other, but I like my nature more to the point without all the flowery language mucking it up. I also didn't find Rowthorn's contributions to be all that informative. They were often too short and lacked any real analysis that some of these passages begged for. But I do appreciate the way she organized this little book, because you get a really good insight into how Muir's thinking evolved overtime and changed with the reality. Overall not a bad book but one that left plenty of room for improvement.… (more)

The Wisdom of John Muir is a pleasant little book, packed full of information about Muir and his life, and lots of lovely excerpts of his writing.

The excerpts are organized roughly by theme (such as trees, or animals) and chronology into chapters. Each chapter begins with an overview of the theme and how it played out in Muir's life; each quoted section within the chapter is briefly introduced with a comment on context. There's a bit of overlap between the comments and the overviews at times, but it works.

In addition there are things like a chronology of Muir's life, a list of the works drawn from, and recommendations for further exploration. A compact but useful index rounds it out.

In some ways the strength of the collection lies in Anne Rowthorn's understanding of when to provide context, and when get out of the way and let Muir speak for himself. The selections are wide-ranging and lovely, and offer a good introduction to Muir's writing and philosophy.

On a personal note, I will remember this collection affectionately for the role it played this summer for my family. We were scattering the ashes of my godmother, a passionate nature lover, and realized we'd forgotten to bring the book of readings we planned to draw from for our informal ceremony. I'd brought this book along with the idea of getting it read for the review, and it turned out to be the perfect thing. We each found something wonderful and apt to read in it, and were greatly satisfied.… (more)