 | Fear Falls Away and other Essays from Hard and Rocky Places: and Other Essays from Hard and Rocky Places Subjects: Santa Catalina Mountains -- Description and travel; Mountains -- Arizona -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Arizona -- Santa Catalina Mountains; Bowers Janice Emily; The Sonoran desert of the American Southwest is a harsh landscape, a place hard enough to abide much less adore. But naturalist Bowers (A Full Life in a Small Place) simply loves the wilderness of southern Arizona and this journey will show readers what makes her backyard special. "Our mountains are not the stuff of posters and coffee-table books. They are rather the stuff of wary beauty and abiding love... a love that lies less in easy responses than in intimate acquaintance, doggedly pursued." The collection also chronicles a year in the life of the author during which she hiked her favorite mountains. The observations of her personal life are evocative but not so involved as to distract from her reflections of canyons and mountain tops. By mixing memoir and botany, Bowers has transcended dry nature writing. "Science is my eyes, my fingers, and my ears," she says. Bowers adroitly translates her science into a moving prose that will assist desert rat and city dweller alike in coming to a greater understanding of how it's possible to cherish this inhospitable land. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved Janice Emily Bowers is a botanist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Tucson. |
