This is a list of books on my shelves, some of them read and reread, and others still unread. They take totally different approaches. I’m putting bibiliographies on a blog called prairiemarybibliographies.blogspot.com which is long but easy to remember. I won’t annotate them there. Other bibs will focus on Montana, Blackfeet, acting, neuro-research, and other categories that might be useful to others. I'll add more books if I run across them or acquire them.
PLACE
ALTMAN, NATHANIEL
SACRED TREES
Sierra Club, 1994, pb
AMATO, JOSEPH A.
RETHINKING HOME: A Case for Writing History
University of California Press, 2002
(Most places have active local writers who write about what they know and love. They won’t be reviewed nationally, might not be much more than pamphlets, and sometimes must be bought on the spot, but for a person who travels, this is an excellent way to connect.)
BACHELARD, GASTON
THE POETICS OF SPACE
Beacon, 1964 pb
(Bachelard is French philosopher who is a dazzling and poetic writer who is worth searching out. I go back and back to his books.)
BANTING, PAMELA, ED.
FRESH TRACKS: Writing the Western Landscape
Polestar, 1998 hb (Canada)
(Canada has a vital, active environmental community that is very useful for the northern tier US states.)
BARBATO, JOSEPH AND WEINERMAN, LISA
Of the Nature Conservancy
HEART OF THE LAND: Essays on Last Great Places
Pantheon, 1994
(I tend to be suspicious of some of these big organizations and I’m tiring of the idea of “last” and “great” but still you can’t go wrong with an anthology of well-written essays.)
BOGART, BARBARA ALLEN
IN PLACE: Stories of Landscape and Identity from the American West
High Plains Press, 1995
(Dunno. Haven't read it yet.)
BRODY, HUGH
MAPS AND DREAMS
Pantheon, 1981 pb
(I read it but don't remember anything.)
CLOW, DEBORAH AND SNOW, DONALD
NORTHERN LIGHTS: A Selection of New Writing from the American West
Vintage; Random House 1994 pb
(When I was circuit-riding in the seventies, this was a major dynamic cross between magazine and newspaper. At first it was pretty dynamic and original, then it gradually became pot-bound.)
DURY, G. H.
THE FACE OF THE EARTH
Penguin, 1959 pb
(One of my father’s basic geology books. It’s probably out-dated, though you wouldn’t think rocks would change much. Thinking about them certainly has, esp. since satellites.)
EVERSON, WILLIAM
ARCHETYPE WEST: The Pacific Coast as a Literary Region
Oyez, 1976 pb
(This is also an old enough collection of writers to be interesting again, as history.)
FIFFER, SHARON SLOAN AND STEVE
HOME: American Writers Remember Rooms of their Own
Vintage Books, 1995 pb
(This is sort of a maverick book -- almost interior decorating -- but many people are conditioned to write in a certain place, and people are endlessly curious about writer’s everything. I have a couple of others of this category, but didn’t find them this time around. I think they're big picture books, so on a different shelf.)
GALLAGHER, WINIFRED
THE POWER OF PLACE: How our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions and Actions
Harper Perennial, 1993
(Very pleasant sort of reading.)
GOODRICH, CHARLES
THE PRACTICE OF HOME: Biography of a House
Lyons Press, 2004 hb
(Another sort of popular book, but what’s wrong with that?)
GREENE, ELAINE
THOUGHTS OF HOME: Reflections on Families, Houses and Homelands from the pages of House Beautiful Magazine
Hearst Books, 1999 pb
(Close to interior porn. Prosperity based. Again, pleasant and reassuring.)
HIGH, LISA AND PLATT, LISS
Felix: a Journal of Media Arts and Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1995
LANDSCAPE(S): Esta dedicado a la memoria de Juan Downey pb
(Post Modern high philosophical stuff.)
HISS, TONY
THE EXPERIENCE OF PLACE: A New Way of Looking at, and Dealing with our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside
First Vintage, 1990 pb
(City planner ideas. They need to tell the rest of us what they know.)
KATAKIS, MICHAEL ED.
SACRED TRUSTS: Essays on Stewardship and Responsibility
Mercury House, 1993 pb
(Verges on political)
KEMMIS, DANIEL
COMMUNITY AND THE POLITICS OF PLACE
U of Oklahoma Press,1990 hb
(Frank politics of the left-handed persuasion. This is a Montana author, much beloved.)
LIPPI, ROSINA
HOMESTEAD: A novel
Mariner-Houghton Mifflin, 1998 pb
(A good story that gets you thinking. European.)
MILLER, J. HILLIS MILLER
TOPOGRAPHIES
Series called “Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics” edited by Werner Hamacher and David Wellberry
Stanford, 1995 pb
(Fancy thought.)
NEWBY, RICH AND HUNGER, SUZANNE
WRITING MONTANA: Literature Under the Big Sky
Montana Center for the Book, 1996 pb
(I might move this to the Montana list, but people seem to like to think of it as place-defined. Or did.)
NISBETT, RICHARD E.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THOUGHT: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why
Free Press-Simon and Schuster, 2003 pb
(This is a seminal sort of book that will challenge assumptions. Vital.)
PARVIN, ROY
IN THE SNOW FOREST: Three Novellas
W.W. Norton, 2000 pb
(More environment-dependent thought that’s attached to stories.)
POLLAN, MICHAEL
A PLACE OF MY OWN: The Education of an Amateur Builder
Random House, 1997
(I may move this to architecture, but it’s a very hands-on detailed account.)
RAWLINS, C.L.
BROKEN COUNTRY: Mountains and Memory
Henry Holt, 1996 hb
(Poetry by a philosophical sheep herder. Recommended.)
RORTY, RICHARD
PHILOSOPHY AND THE MIRROR OF NATURE
Princeton University,1979 pb
(High flown stuff)
RYBCZINSKI, WITOLD
CITY LIFE: Urban Expectations in a New World
Scribner, 1995 hb
(This may be outdated now -- twenty years later and much, much, bigger cities in what begins to look like an intransigent Old World.)
STEIN, HOWARD F. AND NEIDERLAND, WILLIAM G.
MAPS FROM THE MIND: Readings in Psychogeography
U of Oklahoma Press, 1989 hb
(Also a little dated, but sometimes that’s useful.)
STRONG,DAVID
CRAZY MOUNTAINS: Learning from Wilderness to Weight Technology
SUNY Series in Environmental Public Policy, ed. by David Orr and Harlan Wilson, State University of the New York Press, 1995, pb
(Environmental rules, technologies, laws, and public uses are not my fav aspect of place, but important.)
TOBIAS, MICHAEL AND COWAN, GEORGIANNE
THE SOUL OF NATURE: Visions of a Living Earth
Continuum Publishing, 1994 hb
(People keep trying to connect spirituality to landscape. Sometimes it works.)
TUAN, YI-FU
SPACE AND PLACE: The Perspective of Experience
U of Minnesota Press, 1977 pb
TOPOPHILIA: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes and Values
Prentice Hall, 1974 pb
(Yi-Fu Tuan is not Chinese -- it's a pseudonym. Why are they sometimes honorable? Tuan tries to take a sort of Buddhist approach. He's from the past, but a key person.)
VILEISIS, ANN
DISCOVERING THE UNKNOWN LANDSCAPE: A History of America’s Wetlands
Island Press, 1997 hb
(A category of land that is pretty crucial in these water-short times.)
WEST, ELLIOTT
GROWING UP WITH THE COUNTRY: Childhood on the Far Western Frontier
University of New Mexico Press, 1989 hb
(This is another cross between territory and history, through the eyes of a human developmental stage. It’s a friendly book but still eye-opening, esp. in our cushy liberal times.)
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