Pride of Place
A Contemporary Anthology of Texas Nature Writing
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Since Roy Bedichek's influential Adventures with a Texas Naturalist, no book has attempted to explore the uniqueness of Texas nature, or reflected the changes in the human landscape that have accelerated since Bedichek's time. Pride of Place updates Bedichek's discussion by acknowledging the increased urbanization and the loss of wildspace in today's state. It joins other recent collections of regional nature writing while demonstrating what makes Texas uniquely diverse. These fourteen essays are held together by the story of Texas pride, the sense that from West Texas to the Coastal Plains, we and the landscape are important and worthy of pride, if not downright bravado. This book addresses all the major regions of Texas. Beginning with Roy Bedichek's essay "Still Water," it includes Carol Cullar and Barbara "Barney" Nelson on the Rio Grande region of West Texas, John Graves's evocative "Kindred Spirits" on Central Texas, Joe Nick Patoski's celebration of Hill Country springs, Pete Gunter on the Piney Woods, David Taylor on North Texas, Gary Clark and Gerald Thurmond on the Coastal Plains, Ray Gonzales and Marian Haddad on El Paso, Stephen Harrigan and Wyman Meinzer on West Texas, and Naomi Shihab Nye on urban San Antonio. This anthology will appeal not only to those interested in regional history, natural history, and the environmental issues Texans face, but also to all who say gladly, "I'm from Texas."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Taylor (editor of South Carolina Naturalists) has gathered essays that express an affinity for the natural landscape of Texas as they celebrate a state in flux. The late naturalist Roy Bedichek's "Still Water" focuses on the vermilion flycatcher extending its range north from the tropics. In a tribute to the environment on the banks of the Rio Grande, Carol Cullar writes that the limestone has literally become a part of her bones. In his own essay, Taylor says that he has made his peace with the loss of ancient wilderness to development. The strength of the selections lies both in the skill of the writers and the variety of their subject matter. City boy Gerald Thurmond, for example, gives an eloquent and humorous description of his attempts to forge a bond with his rural father-in-law. In a particularly powerful piece, Stephen Harrigan describes a trip with his daughter to the peak of Enchanted Rock, a place that Native Americans held to be sacred and where, he says, a part of the original Texas still exists: it "had not been wholly digested somehow, and in some places... you could still feel its insistent identity." B&w photos.
