The Man Who Created Paradise: A Fable
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Book Overview
Gene Logsdon's The Man Who Created Paradise is a message of hope at a time when the very concept of earth stewardship is under attack. The fable, inspired by a true story, tells how Wally Spero looked at one of the bleakest places in America--a raw and barren strip-mined landscape--and saw in it his escape from the drudgery of his factory job. He bought an old bulldozer and used the machine to carve patiently, acre by acre, a beautiful little farm out of a seemingly worthless wasteland. Wally's story is a charming distillation of the themes that the late, beloved Gene Logsdon returned to again and again in his many books and hundreds of articles. Environmental restoration is the task of our time. The work of healing our land begins in our own backyards and farms, in our neighborhoods and our regions. Humans can turn the earth into a veritable paradise--if they really want to. Noted photographer Gregory Spaid retraced the trail that Logsdon traveled when he was inspired to write The Man Who Created Paradise. His photographs evoke the same yearning for wholeness, for ties to land and community, that infuses the fable's poetic prose.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0821414070
ISBN13:9780821414071
Release Date:December 2001
Publisher:Ohio University Press
Length:72 Pages
Weight:0.57 lbs.
Dimensions:0.4" x 6.0" x 8.5"
Customer Reviews
3 ratings
A jewel
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
This is such a small little book to have inspired me so much. Logsdon writes even better than is usual for him. You can almost feel his own sickness as he surveys the disemboweled hills and sallow culture of a strip-ming community - smell the richness of earth and pasture as he turns down a gravel drive - and feel hope sprout where death had come. The photos are perfect. The parable is immensely moving. Is it all true? I don't know, but it ought to be. It moved me to make it true in my little corner of paradise lost
Tasty but tiny!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
Mr. Logsdon's book is an easy, inspiring read. It left me yearning for a simpler life... and a thicker book! Stocked with full-page photos, the book consumes all of 15 minutes to read its 36 pages of text. I can highly recommend his books, but with this one, I felt it was over too quickly.
One Empire's Spoils Is Another's Paradise of Spirit
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
Gene, I can't wait to meet you. And seriously, I'd better not wait any longer. I've known the country you describe. Comforting."Paradise" is no fable of spirit. It is inspirational and healing. No doubt you have met my father or at least aspects of a Walter, born in '26, tied to the farm no matter his circumstances. He farmed with a dozer and rather well at times. I write you here to tell the reclaimation of spirit and family. At 75 now he has built his planting 'rig' and is on top of the world with satisfaction.We've always got along fantastic, he and I, but apart; deeply apart. I am determined now, to learn that dozer, that crane, that rig, to make a paradise from paradise lost. Hear the walls fall, the walls I put up, the walls I push away with his "Alice".You and your generation are the "optomists supreme", practical and pragmatic to perfection. Cheeers!
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