Earth Works: Selected Essays
In the hands of award-winning writer Scott Russell Sanders, the essay becomes an inquisitive and revelatory form of art. In 30 of his finest essays--nine never before collected--Sanders examines his Midwestern background, his father's drinking, his opposition to war, his literary inheritance, and his feeling for wildness. He also tackles such vital issues as the disruption of Earth's climate, the impact of technology, the mystique of money, the ideology of consumerism, and the meaning of sustainability. Throughout, he asks perennial questions: What is a good life? How do family and culture shape a person's character? How should we treat one another and the Earth? What is our role in the cosmos? Readers and writers alike will find wisdom and inspiration in Sanders's luminous and thought-provoking prose.
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Scott Russell Sanders, Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington, is author of 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including A Private History of Awe, Writing from the Center (IUP, 1995), and A Conservationist Manifesto (IUP, 2009). Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, and the Mark Twain Award.
"More than any other writer of his generation, Scott Russell Sanders has consistently, and insistently, asked his readers to consider what it means to be a citizen of the Earth."--H. Emerson Blake, Orion
"An "Englewood Review of Books" best book of 2012 Author Scott Russell Sanders is the national winner of the 2010 Indiana Authors Award"--
"Like the building stones of his beloved limestone country, Scott Russell Sanders's enduring essays are beautifully carved from the material of the Earth and its layered lives. The reach of Sanders's incandescent mind will remind readers of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The fierce eloquence of his defense of what is right will remind them of Thoreau. The warmth of his open heart is signature Scott Russell Sanders. This collection of Sanders's finest work will become a classic of American thought."--Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature
"The many things that Scott Russell Sanders cares about--social justice, family, our place in nature, the ways in which culture and place reflect one another--are all woven together wonderfully in this collection of essays. Here is a voice to dispel confusion and keep us well rooted."--Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift and Common as Air
"[The essays in Earth Works are . . . a rich mix of beautifully crafted and progressive pieces that engage the reader in a long conversation. They are best read slowly, providing time to consider Sanders' propositions, his keen insight and lessons, his critical questioning."--Terrain.org
"It's hard to think of a writer today who is better at finding and expressing the profound nature discovered in such simple gifts as a shared meal or a walk in the woods."--indianalivinggreen.com
"Nature, in all of its manifestations--physical, spiritual, geographical--runs through everything that Sanders writes and supplies the materials for much of his vivid and compelling imagery, as well as his inpiration and concern."--Bloom
"[T]he essays of Earth Works are full of energy, hope and life."--Englewood Review of Books
"By turns somber and snap-out-of-it buoyant, these elegant artifacts of restless inquiry cover subjects as intimate as the author's sexual awakening and his father's alcoholism, as broad as the origins of the universe and the disarray of contemporary hyper-urban society."--The Indianapolis Star
"In language that's patient, probing and precise, Sanders . . . has, over the past 30 years or so, built a body of work articulating what it means to live during this time on planet Earth and, particularly, that part of the planet called the American Midwest."--NUVO
"Collectively, these essays invite the reader to gaze more clearly at the world outside his own window--a reminder, as Sanders puts it, that all there is to see 'can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look . . . '"--Barnes & Noble Review
"Among the thirty essays it contains, Earth Works offers a thought-provoking mix of old and new. The nine new pieces included in the back of Earth Works . . . are themselves worth the sticker price."--The Fourth River
