This River Beneath the Sky
This River Beneath the Sky

Author: Doreen Pfost

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2016-02

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0803285345

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Each spring, formations of sandhill cranes crisscross the skies along Nebraska's Platte River in one of the last great migratory spectacles on the North American continent. From across the globe, tens of thousands of visitors gather to witness a land transformed, "wild with birds." But the central Platte River system is witness to even more than this wondrous annual event. It is also an abiding source of natural, agricultural, and economic life in three states as an icon of western history and as a place of wonder. In This River Beneath the Sky, Doreen Pfost seamlessly blends memoir and nature writing, tracking the Platte River valley for one calendar year, ushering readers through its diverse and changing landscape and the plants, animals, and humans that call the ecosystem home. From serving as a tour guide for visitors who come to see the sandhill crane migration to monitoring the population count on a bluebird trail, from exploring the human settlements surrounding the Platte River to wading the river with biologists, Pfost immerses herself in the rhythm and life of the area. Along with Pfost's personal experiences of the river, she explores the river's history, the land- and water-use choices that were made decades ago and their repercussions that must now be mitigated if cranes--and other species--are to survive and flourish, and the legislative and scientific efforts to preserve the diverse species and their essential habitat.

The River in the Sky
The River in the Sky

Author: Clive James

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2018-09-11

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 1760782416

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Clive James has been close to death for several years, and he has written about the experience in a series of deeply moving poems. In Sentenced to Life, he was clear-sighted as he faced the end, honest about his regrets. In Injury Time, he wrote about living well in the time remaining, focusing our attention on the joys of family and art, and celebrating the immediate beauty of the world. When The River in the Sky opens, we find James in ill health but high spirits. Although his body traps him at home, his mind is free to roam, and this long poem is animated by his recollection of what life was and never will be again; as it resolves into a flowing stream of vivid images, his memories are emotionally supercharged ‘by the force of their own fading’. In this form, the poet can transmit the felt experience of his exceptional life to the reader. As ever with James, his enthusiasm is contagious; he shares his wide interests with enormous generosity, making brilliant and original connections, sparking passion in the reader so that you can explore the world’s treasures yourself. Because this is not just a reminiscence, it’s a wise and moving preparation for and acceptance of death. As James realizes that he is only one bright spot in a galaxy of stars, he passes the torch to the poets of the future, to his young granddaughter, and to you, his reader. A book that could not have been written by anyone else, this is Clive James at the height of his considerable powers: funny, wise, deeply felt, and always expressed with an unmatched power for clarity of expression and phrase-making that has been his been his hallmark.

Sky Time in Gray's River
Sky Time in Gray's River

Author: Robert Michael Pyle

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2012-09-24

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0544108701

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Much the way Donald Hall’s Seasons at Eagle Pond captured New England, Sky Time in Gray’s River captures the essence of the rural Northwest. Although Rober Michael Pyle is a lepidopterist, and southwestern Washington is notable for its lack of butterflies, something about the village of Gray's River spoke to him on a visit thirty years ago. Ever since then he has lived in the village, which was one of the first to be established near the mouth of the Columbia River and which still feels only tenuously connected to the twenty-first century. Sky Time brings Gray's River to life by compressing those thirty years into twelve chapters, following the lives of its people, birds, butterflies - and cats- month by month through the seasons. In showing how the village has changed his life, Pyle illustrates how a special place can change anyone lucky enough to find it and highlights what is being lost in a world of accelerating speed, mobility, and sameness. Above all, Sky Time tells us that you dont have to travel far to see something new every day - if you know how to look.

The Shape of the Turtle
The Shape of the Turtle

Author: Sarah Allan

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1991-02-21

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0791494497

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Many Chinese philosophic concepts derive from an ancient cosmology. This work is the first reconstructions of the mythic thought of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1700- 1100 B.C.) which laid the foundation for later Chinese patterns of thought. Allan regards the myth, cosmology, divination, sacrificial ritual, and art of the Shang as different manifestations of a common religious system and each is examined in turn, building up a coherent and consistent picture. Although primarily concerned with the Shang, this work also describes the manner in which Shang thought was transformed in the later textual tradition.

To the River
To the River

Author: Olivia Laing

Publisher: Canons

Published: 2017-10-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781786891587

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To the River is the story of the Ouse, the Sussex river in which Virginia Woolf drowned in 1941. One idyllic, midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked. Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape and how ghosts never quite leave the place they love.