This is a book I should have read 30 years ago. Intensely philosophical and driven toward an encompassing outlook on the environment and the stewardship thereof. Strongly leaves one considering one's footprint on both society and nature. ( )

Wow. Even though my parents owned few books and yet did own this, I never got around to it. And maybe as a child I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much. But now, goodness, I recognize that it belongs on the same shelf as Thoreau, [a:Rachel Carson|15332|Rachel Carson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1397487410p2/15332.jpg], [a:Bernd Heinrich|3350977|Bernd Heinrich|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1303824616p2/3350977.jpg], and [a:Michael Perry|2772479|Michael Perry|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1231631186p2/2772479.jpg]. The man is indeed a hero for the conservation movement, and writes beautifully.

Wisconsin's wilderness, and the nation's perception of the value wilderness and of diverse ecosystems, owes much to him. We have made progress since his day. Yes, much has been lost with our increasing material wealth and population growth, but much has been gained in our attempts to live more in harmony with nature and to let some of it remain free.

"Like many another treaty of restraint, the pre-dawn pact lasts only as long as darkness humbles the arrogant. It would seem as if the sun were responsible for the retreat of reticence from the world. At any rate, by the time the mists are white over the lowlands, every rooster is bragging... and every corn shock is pretending to be twice as tall as any corn that ever grew. By sun-up every squirrel is exaggerating some fancied indignity to his person, and every jay proclaiming with false emotion about suppositious dangers to society, at this very moment discovered by him."

"Hard years, of course come to pines as they do to men, and the are recorded as shorter thrusts, i.e. shorter spaces between the successive whorls of branches. These spaces, then are an autobiography that he who walks with trees may read at will."

The book is not perfect, as there are references that need bibliographic notes and there are a few unfinished thoughts or incomplete conclusions. Some modern readers might object, too, to the bits about hunting (though Leopold himself seemed a bit ambivalent, as he himself hunts but doesn't approve the methods or aims of most others who do). But it is a classic, and still relevant. ( )

63. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold
Illustrator: Charles W. Schwartz
OPD: 1949
format: 226-page paperback from 1968
acquired: 2009 read: Sep 5-21 time reading: 8:20, 2.2 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: nature essays theme: TBR
locations: Wisconsin
about the author: 1887–1948: An American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, environmentalist and professor at the University of Wisconsin. He was born in Burlington, Iowa.

It was about time I finally read this naturalist classic. It's been in the house 15 years, and I've wanted to read it a lot longer than that. It reads oddly slow, or did for me. But it reads nicely. It's not turgid, but clean, simple, often with a poetic efficiency, and my edition was full of the original illustrations.

There are three parts. The opening is a long, sustained time track through a year on the author's property in a central Wisconsin, with its seasonal extremes. The second section, Sketches, lacks the continuous wholeness of the Almanac section, but has some beautiful natural and poetic moments. The last essay - on the western grebe in Manitoba - is especially poetic. The last section is a series of essays that are essentially a naturalist's manifesto, circa 1949. He's writing mainly to naturalists and wildlife experts. He's pleading for a naturalist morality, for us not to leave everything up to the government, for a look broader than the money-first perspective of landowners.

He's in tune with hunters, but not comfortable with the destruction wrought in the name of tourism - especially roads. And he takes time to think about purity vs the artificially created sporting environments where fish or other animals are supplied by stock. He foresees a lot that has actually happened, and actually I think things are worse than he predicts. His thinking is more or less common sense, if a common sense spun from extensive experience.

Recommended especially to those with an interest in the naturalist literary tradition, and anyone in Wisconsin.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/362165#8628632 ( )

Oh, man; I'm only through the first (and probably most famous) essay, and I've already got such mixed feelings, I had to write about them: https://zwieblein.bearblog.dev/a-naturalist-and-his-barbs/

Later: Finally pushed through this one and got it done. "The Land Ethic" was probably the best chapter in this collection. As a whole, the book was representative of the conundrums that come with solid arguments and spot-on critique combined with the way in which that critique is delivered. I think the best I can say is that I've no desire to sit down and have a chat with the ghost of Aldo Leopold.

★★★★★ on the "Almanac" part, weaker (and more dated) though still monumental for Parts 2-3. ( )