Aldo Leopold's book of essays is a good one to pull out every month and remark on the change of seasons, the month gone by and the one to come. It will plant you as firmly on the sandy plains of Adams County, Wisconsin, watching the bright red blackberry bushes in the morning sun, as any text you will ever see.

I expected a book that would move me emotionally as well as intellectually, like Abby's Desert Solitude. That's not what this book is all about. It is well written, yes, but it only shoots for the intellect, not the heart, or at least it did for me. It is still an important read.

A classic. As we rush into brave new environmental worlds where angels fear to tread, and as our kids grow up plugged in rather than playing in the dirt, this should be required reading in all schools (and required for the parents, too). Besides presenting a compelling and important argument, it's also a very good book.

I re-read Leopold's Sand County Almanac every couple of years or so. It's not just a beautifully poetic celebration of the land. Its defense of a new sense of moral responsibility to the environment, spelled out in the book's "The Land Ethic," is a bracing tonic against the modern temptation to take the biosphere for granted. In these days of global warming, fossil fuel depletion, and escalating degradation of the land, water, and atmosphere, Leopold's 60-year-old plea for a new environmental ethic is both prophetic and urgently immediate.

In "The Land Ethic," Leopold argues for a new understanding of the moral community. Earlier ethical models focused on interpersonal and social relationships between humans. But given the interconnectedness of all members of the biosphere, we need to extend the moral community to include earth, sky, water, and all species--the biota. At least since the dawn of the modern age, human have tended to prize the biota only in terms of what we could get out of it. It had a purely economic, utilitarian value. But this way of thinking has resulted in environmental (not to mention economic and political) crisis.

What we must do now, argues Leopold, is to recognize our "vital" relationship to the biota, acknowledging that the well-being of our species is intimately connected to the well-being of the whole. This calls for a new standard of valuation that runs counter to the older, economic model. "Quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem," writes Leopold. "Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient." And if we do that, he concludes, we'll adopt the following ethical principle: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise" (p. 262). And part of what this means is that humans should strive to leave relatively light footprints on the earth, because the lighter our impact, the more likely the biota can successfully readjust to maintain integrity, stability, and beauty.

Good, important advice.

I knew I would enjoy this book right from the start, when I found the following passages in the Foreward: "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot..." and "For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television..."

If you can relate to those statements, you will love this book. Guaranteed. Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, but he was so much more. He was a visionary. Read those statements again, and when you realize that he wrote them back in 1948, you might be amazed. But as you read the book, you will come to understand how special he was. Facts or knowledge that we take for granted today (e.g., predators play an important role in a healthy ecosystem), Leopold was talking about them over 50 years ago. Time and again I found myself checking the copyright because I could not believe someone was actually thinking this way so long ago.

However, it's not just the ideas of Leopold that made him special. The way he wrote was special, too. His talent drew you in, even though he was writing about something that, by the sound of it, might be kind of dry. For example, in a section called "Good Oak," he connects the passage of years to the rings of a fallen tree that he is cutting for firewood. Starting with the 1940s he relates one environmental tidbit after another for decades or years: "Now our saw bites into the 1890s...when the last passenger pigeon collided with a charge of shot near Babcock." By the time Leopold is done cutting the fallen tree, the reader has received a fascinating and sobering account of what had transpired to the environment in the area of this oak tree for the previous 80 years. The way he used the backdrop of cutting the tree rings as "markers" of environmental mishaps was masterful. It is Leopold at his best, but fortunately, the book is full of writing like this.

It is divided into three sections. The first one follows a calendar year on his farm in Wisconsin, with Leopold relating little vignettes about chickadees, skunks, flowers, or whatever else he comes across. It is probably the most charming part of the book. Part two ("Sketches Here and There") contains short remembrances of Leopold's travels to different parts of North America. Unfortunately, the story usually has a "bad" ending - at least, for the environment or for a species (like the now-extinct passenger pigeon). But Leopold had a reason for that. He moves to part three, "The Upshot," where he spells out his ideas for saving the land and the wild things that live there. It is too much to discuss here, but Leopold again hits the mark. His goal was to try and change how Americans think about the use (and abuse) of our environment. Pehaps his biggest lament then, and mine now, is that not enough people care about what we are doing to the land.

That's why this book was published. The hope of this book was to change the hearts of the average American. It still is. Over fifty years later, it's still in print, and it's still relevant.

Five stars. Absolutely the best nature/environment book I've ever read.

I knew I would enjoy this book right from the start, when I found the following passages in the Foreward: "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot..." and "For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television..."

If you can relate to those statements, you will love this book. Guaranteed. Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, but he was so much more. He was a visionary. Read those statements again, and when you realize that he wrote them back in 1948, you might be amazed. But as you read the book, you will come to understand how special he was. Facts or knowledge that we take for granted today (e.g., predators play an important role in a healthy ecosystem), Leopold was talking about them over 50 years ago. Time and again I found myself checking the copyright because I could not believe someone was actually thinking this way so long ago.

However, it's not just the ideas of Leopold that made him special. The way he wrote was special, too. His talent drew you in, even though he was writing about something that, by the sound of it, might be kind of dry. For example, in a section called "Good Oak," he connects the passage of years to the rings of a fallen tree that he is cutting for firewood. Starting with the 1940s he relates one environmental tidbit after another for decades or years: "Now our saw bites into the 1890s...when the last passenger pigeon collided with a charge of shot near Babcock." By the time Leopold is done cutting the fallen tree, the reader has received a fascinating and sobering account of what had transpired to the environment in the area of this oak tree for the previous 80 years. The way he used the backdrop of cutting the tree rings as "markers" of environmental mishaps was masterful. It is Leopold at his best, but fortunately, the book is full of writing like this.

It is divided into three sections. The first one follows a calendar year on his farm in Wisconsin, with Leopold relating little vignettes about chickadees, skunks, flowers, or whatever else he comes across. It is probably the most charming part of the book. Part two ("Sketches Here and There") contains short remembrances of Leopold's travels to different parts of North America. Unfortunately, the story usually has a "bad" ending - at least, for the environment or for a species (like the now-extinct passenger pigeon). But Leopold had a reason for that. He moves to part three, "The Upshot," where he spells out his ideas for saving the land and the wild things that live there. It is too much to discuss here, but Leopold again hits the mark. His goal was to try and change how Americans think about the use (and abuse) of our environment. Pehaps his biggest lament then, and mine now, is that not enough people care about what we are doing to the land.

That's why this book was published. The hope of this book was to change the hearts of the average American. It still is. Over fifty years later, it's still in print, and it's still relevant.

Five stars. Absolutely the best nature/environment book I've ever read.

Life got you down? Live in a big city? Take a refreshing break and escape to the Wisconsin countryside in this beautifully written little book about the land and the plants and animals that live and grow there. Aldo Leopold's writing is more compelling than John Muir's,and more knowledgeable than Thoreau's. In a series of short sketches you follow the cycle of the land from January to December. Along the way you learn about history, meet amazing plants and animals, and experience the drama of both the destruction and the rebirth of our land.

Life got you down? Live in a big city? Take a refreshing break and escape to the Wisconsin countryside in this beautifully written little book about the land and the plants and animals that live and grow there. Aldo Leopold's writing is more compelling than John Muir's,and more knowledgeable than Thoreau's. In a series of short sketches you follow the cycle of the land from January to December. Along the way you learn about history, meet amazing plants and animals, and experience the drama of both the destruction and the rebirth of our land.

I keep this book on my nightstand and read an essay or two after my pj's are on and before going to bed. My bookmark is a pencil for making notes in the margin when particularly wonderful passages are encountered. The margins are very full.

Aldo opens our eyes to worlds in our own backyards which have always existed but which have remained undiscovered due to our own dull-sightedness. I considered myself an avid nature-watcher, but the extent to which Mr. Leopold carries this hobby is humbling. He inspires any true fan to learn the names and habits of every tree, shrub, weed, thistle, bird, insect, and critter native to one's home county, and to hone one's journaling skills and master the talent of imagery and metaphor.

But, this book is not for everyone. I've read favorite passages to friends only to watch their eyes glaze with disinterest. If you're the outgoing, life-of-the-party, must-always-be the-center-of-attention type, then perhaps The DaVinci Code would be of interest. But if you enjoy solitary walks in the woods, canoe paddles on distant foggy lakes, or reading prose with your pj's on, then this is required reading.

"Thus always does history, whether of marsh or market place, end in paradox. The ultimate value in these marshes is wildness, and the crane is wildness incarnate. But all conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish." (from "Marshland Elegy")

"It must be poor life that achieves freedom from fear." This, from reflections on being caught on horseback during a lightning storm, is a comment on the "civilized" mindset that wanted all to be safe, and so feared and destroyed wildness.

These essays were written mostly in the 1940's, although some of them are about earlier times in the author's life. In a way, reading Aldo Leopold is like watching Humphrey Bogart in those old movies, with his smoking and tough-guy sexism. We understand these as disreputable today, but can put them in context. Likewise, Aldo Leopold was in many ways a typical countryman of his time and place. He loved to hunt and fish, and even reflexively shot wolves, like everyone else. He came to regret that, and in fact to realize that in the new era, where hunting and fishing have become mass recreations, that the old ways just don't work anymore. But they did in his day, and he does not retrospectively apologize for having been, in a sense, just another predator.

But he was also a college professor, and an expert naturalist and ecologist. In this book he is a poetic writer about nature and a loving reporter of all things wild. No matter where I lived I would love this book, but having lived not too far from his sand counties and walked his restored prairies makes it the sweeter.

"Thus always does history, whether of marsh or market place, end in paradox. The ultimate value in these marshes is wildness, and the crane is wildness incarnate. But all conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish." (from "Marshland Elegy")

"It must be poor life that achieves freedom from fear." This, from reflections on being caught on horseback during a lightning storm, is a comment on the "civilized" mindset that wanted all to be safe, and so feared and destroyed wildness.

These essays were written mostly in the 1940's, although some of them are about earlier times in the author's life. In a way, reading Aldo Leopold is like watching Humphrey Bogart in those old movies, with his smoking and tough-guy sexism. We understand these as disreputable today, but can put them in context. Likewise, Aldo Leopold was in many ways a typical countryman of his time and place. He loved to hunt and fish, and even reflexively shot wolves, like everyone else. He came to regret that, and in fact to realize that in the new era, where hunting and fishing have become mass recreations, that the old ways just don't work anymore. But they did in his day, and he does not retrospectively apologize for having been, in a sense, just another predator.

But he was also a college professor, and an expert naturalist and ecologist. In this book he is a poetic writer about nature and a loving reporter of all things wild. No matter where I lived I would love this book, but having lived not too far from his sand counties and walked his restored prairies makes it the sweeter.

Read Walden, then read Sand County Almanac. They might just change the way you think about the world.

Aldo Leopold wrote these famous words: "There are those of us who can live without wild things and those of us who cannot." For those of you who cannot, this is your book. Aldo Leopold was a great man like a great old tree, with roots anchored down to earth and an intellect branching out towards new ways of thinking and looking at the world. The combination results in keen observations highlighted by elegant prose. I usually can't read too far into this book without getting a lump in my throat.

The "Almanac" has been published several ways during the past fifty years, I strongly recommend the book published by Oxford University Press. It includes Thinking like a Mountain, The Land Ethic, and other important essays.
From Leopold's Sketches: "Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language."
Scientist, educator, forester, philosopher, writer -- Aldo Leopold appears to many as something of an enigma. In his earlier writings, Leopold was a very different man than we find in this volume. In Leopold's own words: "I was young then, and full or trigger-itch." This insightful classic is a gentle, scholarly, fatherly collection of essays, observations and stories. Like Thoreau's Walden, it is revered, loved and widely imitated. Leopold: "Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf. ... The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf's job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have ... rivers washing the future into the sea."

How can one review something so brilliantly written? One can only say thank you to an author and person we lost much too early. American's need someone like Aldo Leopold again. Just when we had another brilliant soul, named Rachel Carson we too lost her. We have lost our way and desperatly need the likes of Leopold again before we pave everything, pollute the water and darken the sky. Maybe someone will appear as they have before, like Muir, Leopold and Carson; we can only hope. This book is a must!

"A Sand County Almanac - and Sketches Here and There" by Aldo Leopold is divided into three sections. The first, "The Delights and Dilemmas of a Sand County Almanac" give us a month by month account of his depleted WI sand farm, which he is attempting to rehabilitate. These personal essays, odes to seasonal events, are often compared to Thoreau's "Walden". Part II or "Sketches Here and There" is an eclectic collection of personal ruminations. Part III, "The Upshot" addresses social and political issues affecting our environment.

The Chapters in Part I are arranged month by month. For example, "February - Good Oak" is an ode to an eighty-year-old oak, felled by lightning. He reads each ring of the tree as if a chapter in a book, highlighted by events from the era's conservational history. Throughout the years, progress is countered with setbacks; more stringent environmental regulations are juxtaposed with tragic extinctions.

"March - The Geese Return" is marked by the northward migration of the Canadian goose, whose migratory path is a testimony of "the unity of nations". Unlike other critters who can retreat into their lair if the land is still frozen, the arrival of the goose "carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges". Using his keen observation, Leopold educates us about natural and animal behavior. For example, the flight of the goose during fall hunting season is high and silent, whereas in the spring they fly loud and low, a raucous convention. Also, flocks comprise families, or groups of families, which is why they are often found in aggregates of six.

The essays in Part III, published after his death in 1949 address the questions we are wrestling with today. Topics include "Conservation Esthetic," "Wildlife in American Culture," "Wilderness," and the compelling "Land Ethic" which tries to replace a sense of entitlement with one of obligation.

"The Land Ethic" begins with a tale of injustice that highlights the despotic practice of slavery in ancient Greece. His point is that although we have evolved in our treatment of one another, in terms of land management, we are still ignorant of the injustice wreaked upon our landscape. Currently ethics deals with man's relationship with society and with one another, but still there is "no ethic dealing with man's relationship to the land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it". Ethics forces us to view ourselves as a community of interdependent parts. Leopold simply asks us to enlarge our view of that community to include the biota - the soil, rocks, trees, and animals living around us.

Leopold laments that landowners act as if it is their right to extract as much from their land as possible. Such extraction may exhaust the soil, cause erosion and flooding, deplete the area of natural beauty and wildlife, and sully the common stream with silt, but because there is not ethic dealing with the treatment of the land, such an individual can still be hailed as a pillar of society. Leopold notes that obligations over self-interest are taken for granted when it comes to building roads, schools, and churches; but without a commonly held land ethic, water quality, biodiversity, and natural aesthetics are not a part of the public discourse, as land use is wholly governed by economic self-interest.