Crossing Open Ground
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

In the majority of these essays, the highly regarded author of Arctic Dreams (Booklist 82:643 Ja 1 86) returns to the subarctic, though his contemplations of the region display an unfortunate predictability. Canoeing on the Charley River or harvesting seals in the Arctic Ocean, he ruminates unsurprisingly about the politics and policies that affect American wilderness, then expresses expected sentiments of personal and racial guilt and loss. More satisfying, less cloyingly liberal, are the essays built of materials nearer to hand, such as the dreadful sperm whale stranded in Oregon, where Lopez lives. In this tour de force of ecological realism, the author doesn't search out an uninhabited setting for approved insights; nature comes to him instead. At his best, Lopez speaks with great clarity and simple authority, without the unconscious elitism that mars his wilderness essays. MPM. 818 [CIP] 87-23347