Suburban Wild
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Book Overview
Set in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, amid traffic, pollution, and ever-increasing neighborhoods of houses and apartments, these meditative personal essays explore the importance of our connection with the natural world, history, and memory. The Suburban Wild follows the seasons from one spring to the next, celebrating the natural miracles we frequently miss and revealing a territory less tamed than we might imagine. These essays offer the sights and sounds found on the outskirts of cities, just perceptible amid the clutter and din of crowded streets and sidewalks. From the constant humming of cicadas on summer evenings and the seasonal migrations of ducks to the myriad hues in a green heron's feathers, Peter Friederici reveals a complex place in which wild geese and morning commuters share the same habitat.
The essays honor our lost creatures and places, emphasizing the importance of history, memory, and consciousness. The author describes the varying shades and textures of a clay bluff near his childhood home, relating the gradual erosion and recession of this Ice Age-old landform. A description of spirogyra algae blooms on Lake Michigan merges with a discussion of the lake's once abundant native mussels and the imported zebra mussels that are threatening their existence. From recorded memories, Friederici re-creates the sight of the now extinct passenger pigeon. Though awareness of the destruction of the landscape and its creatures is never far from the wonders presented here, The Suburban Wild connects the tracks of wildlife and traces of our changing landscape with our own path through the world. The book explores how history--whether natural or cultural, collective or personal--shapes a landscape, and how human memory shapes that history. At heart, it seeks to forge a link between the world outside our windows and the one inside.Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0820357170
ISBN13:9780820357171
Release Date:August 2019
Publisher:University of Georgia Press
Length:136 Pages
Weight:0.33 lbs.
Dimensions:0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"
Customer Reviews
3 ratings
Excellent book for all
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
In the traditions of Aldo Leopold and Gene Stratton-Porter, Friderici brings the ordinary to life - the invisible environment we pass through every day, mostly without a hint of awareness. A deep rendering of the remnants of nature that are left in the housing developments, corporate parks and fragments of moraine and ravine ecosystems that are the only reminders of the area's glacial past. I highly recommend this book to anyone familiar with the area - it will make you look aroun and more aware of your environment during your daily commute!
hidden treasures
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
In a way it's a shame that this book has the title and blurb that it does, which imply that this book would be of interest only to suburbanites, or even more specifically only to Chicago suburbanites. But just as Chicago's Field Museum is a world-class natural history museum that draws and enlightens visitors from around the world, Friederici's book deserves a much wider audience than just suburbanites or Chicagoans. His eye and prose are just as poetic and informed as that of anyone at work today in the field of literary nature writing. This book contains some great writing and encounters and insights. The best nature writers are looking for the world in a grain of sand, and even though this book goes against the literary "grain" in not setting out for a remote and sublime wilderness, it still finds plenty of interesting grains of sand on the Chicago lakeshore.
The Suburban Wild by P.Friederici
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
It was a real pleasure to read this slim volume of essays by Peter Friederici. The poetic style in describing his impressions while walking through the woods of Suburbia or while reminiscing about his childhood makes one relaxed and feeling good. His background of a naturalist makes some other essays very interesting and enlightening. I recommend this little gem to every suburbanite who likes to read, sitting in an armchair close to the window, occasionally peering out at the birds and the squirrels by the feeder, savoring the words of pleasant and knowledgable poet.
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