The Hopes of Snakes
City Wilds: Essays and Stories About Urban Nature
American Nature Writing, 2000
The Mountain Reader
American Nature Writing 1998
The River Reader
Grrr . . . Poems About Bears
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The River Reader
(Lyons Press, 1998)
Essay: "Reversing the Tides"
Underwater Naturalist
John Murray takes on an impossible task and almost pulls it off--summarizing all he knows and there is to know about rivers. But, then, this is not what he is up to at all in this excellent anthology. He wants to select some rivers and writers and give us just enough so we go out and canoe or float or kayak on a river, take up a river's cause, and do much better about preserving the heritage of rivers. Finally, I suspect he would be pleased if we got hold of the sources of his selections and read them in toto.
Murray's task is daunting because there are so many distinct rivers in the U.S. compared, for example, to the earth's five oceans, and because rivers have drawn such a host of good writers. Twenty-two writers are represented here; among them are Mark Twain on the Mississippi, Audubon on the Missouri, John Wesley Powell and Barry Lopez on the Colorado, and Thoreau on the Allagash. Urban waters are also honored, New York City's East River is here and the nearby Arthur Kill; the writer is Lisa Couturier and she is excellent.
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