Author: Janisse Ray
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 082033815X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
The book explores both the need and the possibilities for conservation of the river and the surrounding forests and wetlands.
Drifting Into Darien
Author: Janisse Ray
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 082033815X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
The book explores both the need and the possibilities for conservation of the river and the surrounding forests and wetlands.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 082033815X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
The book explores both the need and the possibilities for conservation of the river and the surrounding forests and wetlands.
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
Author: Janisse Ray
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571317953
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
From the memories of a childhood marked by extreme poverty, mental illness, and restrictive fundamentalist Christian rules, Janisse Ray crafted a “heartfelt and refreshing” (New York Times) memoir that has inspired thousands to embrace their beginnings, no matter how humble, and to fight for the places they love. This new edition updates and contextualizes the story for a new generation and a wider audience desperately searching for stories of empowerment and hope. Ray grew up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound travelers by hulks of old cars. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray redeems her home and her people, while also cataloging the source of her childhood hope: the Edenic longleaf pine forests, where orchids grow amid wiregrass at the feet of widely spaced, lofty trees. Today, the forests exist in fragments, cherished and threatened, and the South of her youth is gradually being overtaken by golf courses and suburban development. A contemporary classic, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is a clarion call to protect the cultures and ecologies of every childhood.
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571317953
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
From the memories of a childhood marked by extreme poverty, mental illness, and restrictive fundamentalist Christian rules, Janisse Ray crafted a “heartfelt and refreshing” (New York Times) memoir that has inspired thousands to embrace their beginnings, no matter how humble, and to fight for the places they love. This new edition updates and contextualizes the story for a new generation and a wider audience desperately searching for stories of empowerment and hope. Ray grew up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound travelers by hulks of old cars. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray redeems her home and her people, while also cataloging the source of her childhood hope: the Edenic longleaf pine forests, where orchids grow amid wiregrass at the feet of widely spaced, lofty trees. Today, the forests exist in fragments, cherished and threatened, and the South of her youth is gradually being overtaken by golf courses and suburban development. A contemporary classic, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is a clarion call to protect the cultures and ecologies of every childhood.
Altamaha
Author:
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820343129
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
Formed by the confluence of the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers, the Altamaha is the largest free-flowing river on the East Coast and drains its third-largest watershed. It has been designated as one of the Nature Conservancy's seventy-five Last Great Places because of its unique character and rich natural diversity. In evocative photography and elegant prose, Altamaha captures the distinctive beauty of this river and offers a portrait of the man who has become its improbable guardian. Few people know the Altamaha better than James Holland. Raised in Cochran, Georgia, Holland spent years on the river fishing, hunting, and working its coastal reaches as a commercial crabber. Witnessing a steady decline in blue crab stocks, Holland doggedly began to educate himself on the area's environmental and political issues, reaching a deep conviction that the only way to preserve the way of life he loved was to protect the river and its watershed. In 1999, he began serving as the first Altamaha Riverkeeper, finding new purpose in protecting the river and raising awareness about its plight with people in his community and beyond. At first Holland used photography to document pollution and abuse, but as he came to appreciate and understand the Altamaha in new ways, his photographs evolved, focusing more on the natural beauty he fought to save. More than 230 color photographs capture the area's majestic landscapes and stunning natural diversity, including a generous selection of some the 234 species of rare plants and animals in the region. In their essays, Janisse Ray offers a profile of Holland's transformation from orphan and troubled high school dropout to river advocate, and Dorinda G. Dallmeyer celebrates the biological richness and cultural heritage that the Altamaha offers to all Georgians.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820343129
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
Formed by the confluence of the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers, the Altamaha is the largest free-flowing river on the East Coast and drains its third-largest watershed. It has been designated as one of the Nature Conservancy's seventy-five Last Great Places because of its unique character and rich natural diversity. In evocative photography and elegant prose, Altamaha captures the distinctive beauty of this river and offers a portrait of the man who has become its improbable guardian. Few people know the Altamaha better than James Holland. Raised in Cochran, Georgia, Holland spent years on the river fishing, hunting, and working its coastal reaches as a commercial crabber. Witnessing a steady decline in blue crab stocks, Holland doggedly began to educate himself on the area's environmental and political issues, reaching a deep conviction that the only way to preserve the way of life he loved was to protect the river and its watershed. In 1999, he began serving as the first Altamaha Riverkeeper, finding new purpose in protecting the river and raising awareness about its plight with people in his community and beyond. At first Holland used photography to document pollution and abuse, but as he came to appreciate and understand the Altamaha in new ways, his photographs evolved, focusing more on the natural beauty he fought to save. More than 230 color photographs capture the area's majestic landscapes and stunning natural diversity, including a generous selection of some the 234 species of rare plants and animals in the region. In their essays, Janisse Ray offers a profile of Holland's transformation from orphan and troubled high school dropout to river advocate, and Dorinda G. Dallmeyer celebrates the biological richness and cultural heritage that the Altamaha offers to all Georgians.
Drifting into Darien
Author: Janisse Ray
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 082034186X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Janisse Ray was a babe in arms when a boat of her father’s construction cracked open and went down in the mighty Altamaha River. Tucked in a life preserver, she washed onto a sandbar as the craft sank from view. That first baptism began a lifelong relationship with a stunning and powerful river that almost nobody knows. The Altamaha rises dark and mysterious in southeast Georgia. It is deep and wide bordered by swamps. Its corridor contains an extraordinary biodiversity, including many rare and endangered species, which led the Nature Conservancy to designate it as one of the world’s last great places. The Altamaha is Ray’s river, and from childhood she dreamed of paddling its entire length to where it empties into the sea. Drifting into Darien begins with an account of finally making that journey, turning to meditations on the many ways we accept a world that contains both good and evil. With praise, biting satire, and hope, Ray contemplates transformation and attempts with every page to settle peacefully into the now. Though commemorating a history that includes logging, Ray celebrates “a culture that sprang from the flatwoods, which required a judicious use of nature.” She looks in vain for an ivorybill woodpecker but is equally eager to see any of the imperiled species found in the river basin: spiny mussel, American oystercatcher, Radford’s mint, Alabama milkvine. The book explores both the need and the possibilities for conservation of the river and the surrounding forests and wetlands. As in her groundbreaking Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Ray writes an account of her beloved river that is both social history and natural history, understanding the two as inseparable, particularly in the rural corner of Georgia that she knows best. Ray goes looking for wisdom and finds a river.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 082034186X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Janisse Ray was a babe in arms when a boat of her father’s construction cracked open and went down in the mighty Altamaha River. Tucked in a life preserver, she washed onto a sandbar as the craft sank from view. That first baptism began a lifelong relationship with a stunning and powerful river that almost nobody knows. The Altamaha rises dark and mysterious in southeast Georgia. It is deep and wide bordered by swamps. Its corridor contains an extraordinary biodiversity, including many rare and endangered species, which led the Nature Conservancy to designate it as one of the world’s last great places. The Altamaha is Ray’s river, and from childhood she dreamed of paddling its entire length to where it empties into the sea. Drifting into Darien begins with an account of finally making that journey, turning to meditations on the many ways we accept a world that contains both good and evil. With praise, biting satire, and hope, Ray contemplates transformation and attempts with every page to settle peacefully into the now. Though commemorating a history that includes logging, Ray celebrates “a culture that sprang from the flatwoods, which required a judicious use of nature.” She looks in vain for an ivorybill woodpecker but is equally eager to see any of the imperiled species found in the river basin: spiny mussel, American oystercatcher, Radford’s mint, Alabama milkvine. The book explores both the need and the possibilities for conservation of the river and the surrounding forests and wetlands. As in her groundbreaking Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Ray writes an account of her beloved river that is both social history and natural history, understanding the two as inseparable, particularly in the rural corner of Georgia that she knows best. Ray goes looking for wisdom and finds a river.
Wild Spectacle
Author: Janisse Ray
Publisher: Trinity University Press
ISBN: 1595349588
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
Looking for adventure and continuing a process of self-discovery, Janisse Ray has repeatedly set out to immerse herself in wildness, to be wild, and to learn what wildness can teach us. From overwintering with monarch butterflies in Mexico to counting birds in Belize, the stories in Wild Spectacle capture her luckiest moments—ones of heart-pounding amazement, discovery of romance, and moving toward living more wisely. In Ray’s worst moments she crosses boundaries to encounter danger and embrace sadness. Anchored firmly in two places Ray has called home—Montana and southern Georgia—the sixteen essays here span a landscape from Alaska to Central America, connecting common elements in the ecosystems of people and place. One of her abiding griefs is that she has missed the sights of explorers like Bartram, Sacagawea, and Carver: flocks of passenger pigeons, routes of wolves, herds of bison. She craves a wilder world and documents encounters that are rare in a time of disappearing habitat, declining biodiversity, and a world too slowly coming to terms with climate change. In an age of increasingly virtual, urban life, Ray embraces the intentionality of trying to be a better person balanced with seeking out natural spectacle, abundance, and less trammeled environments. She questions what it means to travel into the wild as a woman, speculates on the impacts of ecotourism and travel in general, questions assumptions about eating from the land, and appeals to future generations to make substantive change. Wild Spectacle explores our first home, the wild earth, and invites us to question its known and unknown beauties and curiosities.
Publisher: Trinity University Press
ISBN: 1595349588
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
Looking for adventure and continuing a process of self-discovery, Janisse Ray has repeatedly set out to immerse herself in wildness, to be wild, and to learn what wildness can teach us. From overwintering with monarch butterflies in Mexico to counting birds in Belize, the stories in Wild Spectacle capture her luckiest moments—ones of heart-pounding amazement, discovery of romance, and moving toward living more wisely. In Ray’s worst moments she crosses boundaries to encounter danger and embrace sadness. Anchored firmly in two places Ray has called home—Montana and southern Georgia—the sixteen essays here span a landscape from Alaska to Central America, connecting common elements in the ecosystems of people and place. One of her abiding griefs is that she has missed the sights of explorers like Bartram, Sacagawea, and Carver: flocks of passenger pigeons, routes of wolves, herds of bison. She craves a wilder world and documents encounters that are rare in a time of disappearing habitat, declining biodiversity, and a world too slowly coming to terms with climate change. In an age of increasingly virtual, urban life, Ray embraces the intentionality of trying to be a better person balanced with seeking out natural spectacle, abundance, and less trammeled environments. She questions what it means to travel into the wild as a woman, speculates on the impacts of ecotourism and travel in general, questions assumptions about eating from the land, and appeals to future generations to make substantive change. Wild Spectacle explores our first home, the wild earth, and invites us to question its known and unknown beauties and curiosities.
The Seed Underground
Author: Janisse Ray
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603583068
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Discusses the loss of fruit and vegetable varieties and the genetically modified industrial monocultures being used today, shares the author's personal experiences growing, saving, and swapping seeds, and deconstructs the politics and genetics of seeds.
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603583068
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Discusses the loss of fruit and vegetable varieties and the genetically modified industrial monocultures being used today, shares the author's personal experiences growing, saving, and swapping seeds, and deconstructs the politics and genetics of seeds.
Things New and Strange
Author: G. Wayne Clough
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820355232
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Things New and Strange chronicles a research quest undertaken by G. Wayne Clough, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution born in the South. Soon after retiring from the Smithsonian, Clough decided to see what the Smithsonian collections could tell him about South Georgia, where he had spent most of his childhood in the 1940s and 1950s. The investigations that followed, which began as something of a quixotic scavenger hunt, expanded as Clough discovered that the collections had many more objects and documents from South Georgia than he had imagined. These objects illustrate important aspects of southern culture and history and also inspire reflections about how South Georgia has changed over time. Clough’s discoveries—animal, plant, fossil, and rock specimens, along with cultural artifacts and works of art—not only serve as a springboard for reflections about the region and its history, they also bring Clough’s own memories of his boyhood in Douglas, Georgia, back to life. Clough interweaves memories of his own experiences, such as hair-raising escapes from poisonous snakes and selling boiled peanuts for a nickel a bag at the annual auction of the tobacco crop, with anecdotes from family lore, which launches an exploration of his forebears and their place in South Georgia history. In following his engaging and personal narrative, we learn how nonspecialists can use museum archives and how family, community, and natural history are intertwined.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820355232
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Things New and Strange chronicles a research quest undertaken by G. Wayne Clough, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution born in the South. Soon after retiring from the Smithsonian, Clough decided to see what the Smithsonian collections could tell him about South Georgia, where he had spent most of his childhood in the 1940s and 1950s. The investigations that followed, which began as something of a quixotic scavenger hunt, expanded as Clough discovered that the collections had many more objects and documents from South Georgia than he had imagined. These objects illustrate important aspects of southern culture and history and also inspire reflections about how South Georgia has changed over time. Clough’s discoveries—animal, plant, fossil, and rock specimens, along with cultural artifacts and works of art—not only serve as a springboard for reflections about the region and its history, they also bring Clough’s own memories of his boyhood in Douglas, Georgia, back to life. Clough interweaves memories of his own experiences, such as hair-raising escapes from poisonous snakes and selling boiled peanuts for a nickel a bag at the annual auction of the tobacco crop, with anecdotes from family lore, which launches an exploration of his forebears and their place in South Georgia history. In following his engaging and personal narrative, we learn how nonspecialists can use museum archives and how family, community, and natural history are intertwined.
Braving the Fire
Author: Jessica Handler
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250014557
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Braving the Fire is the first book to provide a road map for the journey of writing honestly about mourning, grief and loss. Created specifically by and for the writer who has experienced illness, loss, or the death of a loved one, Braving the Fire takes the writers' perspective in exploring the challenges and rewards for the writer who has chosen, with courage and candor, to be the memory keeper. It will be useful to the memoirist just starting out, as well as those already in the throes of coming to terms with complicated emotions and the challenges of shaping a compelling, coherent true story. Loosely organized around the familiar Kübler-Ross model of Five Stages of Grief, Braving the Fire uses these stages to help the reader and writer though the emotional healing and writing tasks before them, incorporating interviews and excerpts from other treasured writers who've done the same. Insightful contributions from Nick Flynn, Darin Strauss, Kathryn Rhett, Natasha Trethewey, and Neil White, among others, are skillfully bended with Handler's own approaches to facing grief a second time to be able to write about it. Each section also includes advice and wisdom from leading doctors and therapists about the physical experience of grieving. Handler is a compassionate guide who has braved the fire herself, and delivers practical and inspirational direction throughout.
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250014557
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Braving the Fire is the first book to provide a road map for the journey of writing honestly about mourning, grief and loss. Created specifically by and for the writer who has experienced illness, loss, or the death of a loved one, Braving the Fire takes the writers' perspective in exploring the challenges and rewards for the writer who has chosen, with courage and candor, to be the memory keeper. It will be useful to the memoirist just starting out, as well as those already in the throes of coming to terms with complicated emotions and the challenges of shaping a compelling, coherent true story. Loosely organized around the familiar Kübler-Ross model of Five Stages of Grief, Braving the Fire uses these stages to help the reader and writer though the emotional healing and writing tasks before them, incorporating interviews and excerpts from other treasured writers who've done the same. Insightful contributions from Nick Flynn, Darin Strauss, Kathryn Rhett, Natasha Trethewey, and Neil White, among others, are skillfully bended with Handler's own approaches to facing grief a second time to be able to write about it. Each section also includes advice and wisdom from leading doctors and therapists about the physical experience of grieving. Handler is a compassionate guide who has braved the fire herself, and delivers practical and inspirational direction throughout.
The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories
Author: Horacio Quiroga
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292753519
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
Tales of horror, madness, and death, tales of fantasy and morality: these are the works of South American master storyteller Horacio Quiroga. Author of some 200 pieces of fiction that have been compared to the works of Poe, Kipling, and Jack London, Quiroga experienced a life that surpassed in morbidity and horror many of the inventions of his fevered mind. As a young man, he suffered his father's accidental death and the suicide of his beloved stepfather. As a teenager, he shot and accidentally killed one of his closest friends. Seemingly cursed in love, he lost his first wife to suicide by poison. In the end, Quiroga himself downed cyanide to end his own life when he learned he was suffering from an incurable cancer. In life Quiroga was obsessed with death, a legacy of the violence he had experienced. His stories are infused with death, too, but they span a wide range of short fiction genres: jungle tale, Gothic horror story, morality tale, psychological study. Many of his stories are set in the steaming jungle of the Misiones district of northern Argentina, where he spent much of his life, but his tales possess a universality that elevates them far above the work of a regional writer. The first representative collection of his work in English, The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories provides a valuable overview of the scope of Quiroga's fiction and the versatility and skill that have made him a classic Latin American writer.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292753519
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
Tales of horror, madness, and death, tales of fantasy and morality: these are the works of South American master storyteller Horacio Quiroga. Author of some 200 pieces of fiction that have been compared to the works of Poe, Kipling, and Jack London, Quiroga experienced a life that surpassed in morbidity and horror many of the inventions of his fevered mind. As a young man, he suffered his father's accidental death and the suicide of his beloved stepfather. As a teenager, he shot and accidentally killed one of his closest friends. Seemingly cursed in love, he lost his first wife to suicide by poison. In the end, Quiroga himself downed cyanide to end his own life when he learned he was suffering from an incurable cancer. In life Quiroga was obsessed with death, a legacy of the violence he had experienced. His stories are infused with death, too, but they span a wide range of short fiction genres: jungle tale, Gothic horror story, morality tale, psychological study. Many of his stories are set in the steaming jungle of the Misiones district of northern Argentina, where he spent much of his life, but his tales possess a universality that elevates them far above the work of a regional writer. The first representative collection of his work in English, The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories provides a valuable overview of the scope of Quiroga's fiction and the versatility and skill that have made him a classic Latin American writer.
Pinhook
Author: Janisse Ray
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603581685
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Janisse Ray, award-winning author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wild Card Quilt, writes an evocative paean to wildness and wilderness restoration with an extraordinary journey into southern Georgia's Pinhook Swamp. Pinhook Swamp acts as a vital watershed and wildlife corridor, a link between the great southern wildernesses of Okefenokee Swamp and Osceola National Forest. Together Okefenokee, Osceola, and Pinhook form one of the largest expanse of protected wild land east of the Mississippi River. This is one of America's last truly wild places, and Pinhook takes us into its heart. Ray comes to know Pinhook intimately as she joins the fight to protect it, spending the night in the swamp, tasting honey made from its flowers, tracking wildlife, and talking to others about their relationship with the swamp. Ray sees Pinhook through the eyes of the people who live there--naturalists, beekeepers, homesteaders, hunters, and locals at the country store. In lyrical, down-home prose, she draws together the swamp's need for restoration and the human desire for wholeness and wildness in our own lives and landscapes.
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603581685
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Janisse Ray, award-winning author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wild Card Quilt, writes an evocative paean to wildness and wilderness restoration with an extraordinary journey into southern Georgia's Pinhook Swamp. Pinhook Swamp acts as a vital watershed and wildlife corridor, a link between the great southern wildernesses of Okefenokee Swamp and Osceola National Forest. Together Okefenokee, Osceola, and Pinhook form one of the largest expanse of protected wild land east of the Mississippi River. This is one of America's last truly wild places, and Pinhook takes us into its heart. Ray comes to know Pinhook intimately as she joins the fight to protect it, spending the night in the swamp, tasting honey made from its flowers, tracking wildlife, and talking to others about their relationship with the swamp. Ray sees Pinhook through the eyes of the people who live there--naturalists, beekeepers, homesteaders, hunters, and locals at the country store. In lyrical, down-home prose, she draws together the swamp's need for restoration and the human desire for wholeness and wildness in our own lives and landscapes.