Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England Author: Visit Amazon's Tom Wessels Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0881504203 | Format: PDF
Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England Description
Review
“The etchings in Reading the Forested Landscape are fabulous and the text is more entertaining than The Disney Channel.” (Brian Downey - Peterborough, NH Transcript)
“Tom Wessels evokes ancient logging roads from the weathered scars on trees deep in the New England forest.....he brings alive the intricate, interwoven, and ever-changing story of his region. I feel grateful for this illuminating and beautifully written book.” (John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home)
From the Inside Flap
A full and wholly original portrait of New England's forests, tracing their evolution from pre-colonial days to the present through a study of the patterns we see today. Read this book, is many fans have said, and no walk in the woods will ever be the same.
Most books and courses on natural history focus on the identification of one small aspect of the complex world outside our doors. We may know how to identify our neighborhood trees but not know why pine are dominant in one place and maple in another; we may notice fungus growing on a beech trunk but not know the devastating impact of blights on our forests over the centuries. Tom Wessels, who has spent more than twenty years interpreting New England's landscape and teaching others to see "the forest for the trees," argues that by coming to a fuller understanding of our home ground, we achieve a greater sense of place.
An intrepid sleuth and articulate tutor, Wessels teaches us to read a landscape the way we might solve a mystery. Each chapter addresses a form of forest disturbance common in New England--fire, logging, and blight are examples--and depicts it in an extraordinary, full-page etching. Studying Wessels's descriptions of forest scenes in conjunction with Cohen's visual portraits teaches us to identify disturbance patterns and, in turn, to take our discoveries outside and read the history written in the character of the land.
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- Series: Nature
- Paperback: 200 pages
- Publisher: Countryman Press; 1 edition (September 20, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0881504203
- ISBN-13: 978-0881504200
- Product Dimensions: 8 x 9 x 0.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Reading the Forested Landscape, first of all, plainly deserves readers outside of New England. While the particular forests the book looks at are in the northeast, Tom Wessels' approach and style won't be lost on anyone with an interest in natural history. Give this as a gift to a birding friend, or for someone to keep in their cabin.
The bedrock of the book is patient, graceful storytelling. At the outset of each chapter, Wessels shows us a simple print of a forest. He asks us to wonder what made that forest, and then he leads us, in unaffected voice, through his thinking as he answers that question. Why is this maple here? Are the trees here fire damaged? Wessels describes the outlines from which we can read a larger story. Each chapter is a little mystery, in a sense. Those little puzzles are fun.
It's apparent how carefully Forested Landscape was crafted. This isn't just a collection of portraits; the chapters progress from one to the next intelligently. For example, you learn how to recognize a fire in one chapter; at the beginning of the next, Wessels starts by asking whether a similar fire has taken place in this new spot. That's a simple transition, but it really helps you stay in the flow of the writing. The author's smart enough to reinforce what you've learned at the same time that he's establishing continuity in the larger story. This book reads through wonderfully.
And there's a bigger picture you're reading toward, too. Each chapter also includes a broader natural history subject related to its particular forest. You've seen a few trees, and you've puzzled out the sort of setting you're looking at; now, by touching on a bigger natural historical theme, you place that forest in the natural world as a whole.
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