A Sand County Almanac

My brother-in-law, bless his aspirational hippie heart, gave me this book last Christmas. I waited four months to start reading it when my guilt told me it was time. Now having been nibbling at it for four more months I will officially retire from reading it.

Much like reading The Pillow Book, this is beautifully written and has no plot to drive you forward; its the sort of book you can keep in the bathroom to just pick up while you take care of business. But where the Pillow Book is a mostly pleasant, if somewhat dull book about finding pleasure in medieval Japan, this book is a melancholy read because, even as it describes beauty in nature the driving theme of this work is the destruction of America’s natural habitat. Importantly, this book was published in 1949 so when it describes a long standing trend of environmental degradation it was a trend 75 years ago and really nothing has improved that I can see.

A big memory of the book is that Mr Leopold went camping at a time when much of America’s wilderness was only accessible on foot, horseback or canoe. And he describes being camped for months at a time feeding himself largely by hunting and fishing. Another memory is a little essay where he describes his idea of a good hobby for him: bow hunting with a homemade bow and arrows!

Anyway if you are really interested in this book, Wikipedia has you covered.