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Grass, Sky, Song
Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds
| Price: |
$32.95 |
| On Sale: |
18/02/2009 |
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Formats:
Hardcover
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Readers, booksellers and literary judges alike fell in love with Trevor Herriot’s stunning debut book, River in a Dry Land. In his remarkable new work, he draws on 20 years’ experience as an observer of nature to reveal the spirit of the grassland world, and the uniqueness of its birds.
Facing the demise of the very creatures that he has always depended on for his sense of home, Herriot sets out to discover why birds are disappearing and what, if anything, we can do to save them. He takes us out to local pastures where a few prairie songbirds sing and nest, as well as to the open rangeland where doomed populations of burrowing owls and greater sage-grouse cling to survival. In a narrative that is at once profound, intimate and informative, we meet passionate bird researchers and travel in the footsteps of 19th-century botanist John Macoun, the last naturalist to see the Great Plains in its pre-settlement grandeur.
In the spirit of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, this arresting book fills the heart with wonder and reveals that any hope for the endangered wildness in North America’s heartland depends on people making the right choices—on farms, in legislatures and in board rooms, and even at the supermarket. Beautifully illustrated with the author’s own drawings, Grass, Sky, Song awakens our senses to the glory of all birds and calls for a renewed bond between culture and nature.
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Author Extras
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Critical Praise for
Grass, Sky, Song
“So entirely persuasive,
so beautifully written, so brimming with humanity. . . . it changes my way of
viewing the world.”
—
Bill Richardson, The Globe & Mail on River in a Dry Land
"To names like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson
and Barry Lopez we must add Trevor Herriot, who mixes the gentle sway of avian
beauty and sadness with clear prairie air and the minutest observation of little
things to show us how the world could be, if we'd only listen. This is a
remarkably moving book, a classic."
—
James Raffan, author of Bark, Skin and Cedar
"Join Trevor Herriot in a beautifully written and intimate conversation with
his neighbours in the northern Great Plains - the meadowlark, sage grouse and
pipit - and you will soon be able to hear the sad whispers of the dwindling
grasslands."
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Bridget Stutchbury, author of Silence of the Songbirds
"Trevor Herriot's writing flows from the
universal to the particular, from keen observation to wisdom, with an
effortlessness that can only be described as grace. He laments the decline of
native Prairie and its songbirds, reminds us that such loss is the natural
consequence of decisions we, as a civilization, made a long time ago, and
somehow makes that thought consoling. Grass, Sky, Song takes natural
history and turns it into epic."
—
Wayne Grady, author of Bringing Back the Dodo
"Informed by a deeply religious sensibility, Herriot's account of the disfigured prairie is coloured by his abiding nostalgia for the pre-settler past, a time when wildfire and roaming herds of buffalo choreographed a "dancing mosaic of life" on the plains. Yet his openness to the transcendental prevents him from solemnizing for too long over a fallen world." Read the full review.
—
The Walrus
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Grass, Sky, Song
Published to wide acclaim, this beautiful meditation on the fate of grassland birds has been praised for its profound wisdom and lyrical grace. Herriot, in a narrative that is at once intimate and informative, argues for the essential nature of these tiny creatures. He invites us into the unique...
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